


Hope For Our Happy Endings

by cytheriafalas



Series: Hope/Lost Verse [1]
Category: SHINee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prostitution, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-26
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 02:37:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/894810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cytheriafalas/pseuds/cytheriafalas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of the apparently required prostitute Taemin fics. Taemin and Key are prostitutes, working for a man who is willing to house them off the streets as long as they make enough money. Minho had planned to go see this prostitute once, just as a way to get Jonghyun out of his head. When he finds Taemin later, bleeding in the park, things get a little more complicated, especially once he finds out he's a heroin addict. This thing turned out to be a beast and I have to apologize for the slightly pathetic smut attempt at the beginning. I did my best. And it's over soon, I promise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“So… Ah… How do we do this?”

Taemin smiled, moving around the room to dim the lights, until only the full moon shining from the outside provided any illumination. It played well off his skin, especially with his hair swept back and his bangs hanging in his face, and he knew it. “Is this your first time with someone like me, or your first time with a man?”

The man coughed and Taemin could see a faint blush climbing up his cheeks. “Both, actually.”

Taemin moved back across the room to the coat hooks on the wall and hung his robe there. He could hear the man’s breathing change, the tiniest catch in his breath.

“I’ll show you,” Taemin said, coming to a stop in front of him. “What should I call you?”

The man was looking very carefully only up at Taemin’s face, even though Taemin was still in the black pants he always wore for meetings like this. He had always been good at tailoring his clothes, or lack thereof, to his customers’ tastes. This one was nervous. He couldn’t afford to scare him off.

“Minho,” he said at last. Taemin suspected it might even have been his real name.

“Relax, Minho,” Taemin murmured, his fingers slipping beneath the man’s tie. “Relax and tell me what you want.” The tie hit the floor. He could already see the man’s heartbeat had sped up, pulse pounding in his neck, his hands rubbing nervously on his thighs.

He _hated_ when they were nervous -- it was so easy to spook them. He unbuttoned a few of Minho’s shirt buttons, but left the rest, letting his fingers trail to the back of Minho’s neck and tangle in his hair. It was longer than most of the men who visited him. Taemin rather liked it.

“I think it’s best if you sit on the bed,” Taemin whispered in his ear.

He felt Minho jump beneath his fingertips. Taemin slid his hands around to Minho’s chest and then let them fall to his sides, leaving Minho free to move to the bed. He did, sitting uncomfortably. Taemin knelt behind him, resting his cheek against Minho’s while unbuttoning his shirt the rest of the way. That landed on the floor as well.

Taemin’s hands swept up Minho’s chest and to his shoulders. “Lie on your stomach,” Taemin instructed, rubbing at knots in Minho’s shoulders. He waited until Minho had complied, shifting uncomfortably on the bed, and then climbed over him, straddling his hips.

Minho made a brief sound of discomfort, but Taemin shushed him, massaging the knots from Minho’s shoulders and back. It didn’t take long for the soft moans to begin, spurred by the occasional kiss Taemin pressed to a particularly knotted muscle.  
His hands slipped over the curve of Minho’s ass and he heard Minho hiss in a breath. “I can’t do this.”

Taemin’s hands retreated to Minho’s back and upper arms. “Why not?”

“It’s just… I can’t.”

He let Minho sit, the man covering his face with his hands.

“Who is he?” Taemin asked. He kept his hands on Minho, one hand on his shoulder, then one on his back, then dipping just past his collarbone, the way they gentled frightened animals.

“Who is _who_?”

“The man. The reason you came here tonight. Tell me what he would do.” Taemin lowered his voice, almost touching Minho’s ear with his lips. “Show me what you want to do to him.”

Taemin pressed him back onto the bed, tugging at the belt until it loosened and easing the last of Minho’s clothes off. He pulled off his own pants and kissed his way down Minho’s chest. Minho’s head dropped back onto the pillow, a hand fisting in the blankets.

It only took him a few moments to roll the condom into place with his lips and move himself into position. He met Minho’s eyes and in a single, slow movement eased himself down. The man swore, his hands gripping Taemin’s hips and holding him in place.

He began rocking his hips, just a little, to see Minho’s reaction. It was as expressive as it had been before. Taemin let his head roll back, drawing forth a soft moan. Taemin felt Minho shifting beneath him and suddenly he was on his back, pinned to the bed.

Taemin moaned again, louder this time. The sound registered with Minho exactly as he knew it would. He was gentler than Taemin expected, but he was gasping out a name that definitely wasn’t Taemin’s.

While Minho was fucking him, Taemin let his mind wander, paying only enough attention to provide the appropriate moans. For once, he didn’t have any other appointments that night. It was a pain to rush through the shower and clean up the room in time for his next.

He would have time to take a nice, long shower and then get a full night’s sleep. He would even get to spend most of tomorrow alone, and maybe for once not even have to get out of bed.

His mind drew him back when he could feel when Minho reaching his orgasm. Taemin let him stay there for a few seconds, riding out the last of the tremors, before he rolled free, tugging his pants on in movements far less sensual than they had been earlier.

“There’s a bathroom just through that door if you need to shower before you go home,” Taemin said, gesturing with his hand. He slung the robe around his shoulders and collected the money on the bedside table, counting it out. It would be enough to last them a few days.

He left through the second door continued to the single room that served as their bedroom, living room, and kitchen. Key was waiting for him, a towel in hand.

“How’d it go?”

“As well as always,” Taemin said, stretching out his shoulders. “I almost feel sorry for men like him.”

“You’ll feel sorry for anyone if they pay you enough,” Key said, but Taemin didn’t sense any true hostility from him. They’d been together since before Taemin turned sixteen, stuck in this little hellhole Makoto provided his more expensive whores.

“For enough money, there’s nothing I won’t do. That’s why we stay here, rather than on the streets with the rest of them.”

“Go take your shower,” Key said. Taemin had almost made it to the door when Key stopped him, holding out his hand. “Taemin, money. And all of it this time.”

Taemin fished the money out of the waistband of his pants and pressed it into Key’s hand. “Six hundred thousand.”

“He did pay you well.”

Taemin ignored him, walking into the bathroom and shedding his clothes as he walked. He turned the water up to near scalding and stepped in, letting it burn the night’s activities from his skin.

He closed his eyes, tipping his head back, feeling the water soak his hair. He wished he could cut it sometimes, particularly on the days when it was near ripped out of his scalp, but Makoto insisted on the length, one of the few things in which he refused to indulge Taemin. He said it made their first time customers more comfortable. It made Taemin look less masculine, at least until the men could get from the _idea_ of a male prostitute to actually being with one.

He stood under the water until it began to cool, regardless of how high he turned the temperature. He pulled on a torn pair of sweatpants and a shirt that was so large on him it nearly fell off his shoulders. Key was waiting for him, some food sitting on the table. The smell of it made Taemin nauseous, and he aimed to bypass it, heading for the table beside the bed, but Key stopped him.

“You need to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I know you’re not, but you need to eat anyway.”

“ _Umma_ ,” Taemin began in the voice that usually got him his way, making a face.

“Food first,” Key said pointedly.

Taemin sighed and sat, forcing down a few mouthfuls of rice. He really wasn’t hungry, but Key stood over his shoulder, refusing to let him stand until he’d eaten at least half the bowl.    He shoved the bowl aside, willing his stomach to settle. It wasn’t that Key was a bad cook at all, just that his body never wanted the food. No matter how little he ate, he always felt too full and sick.

“Is it ready?”  
Key nodded, his face fixed in a neutral expression, as it always was when Taemin brought it up. Taemin held out his left arm expectantly.

“Lie down,” Key said, moving to the bedside table and picking up the two objects there. “I’m not carrying you to the bed this time.”

Taemin moved obediently to the bed, flopping down and holding out his left arm. He knew that Key hated this, but he hated the idea of Taemin not being able to forget even more, so he sank to his knees, holding Taemin’s arm against his chest. He pulled the tourniquet tight, waiting a few seconds longer than necessary before he slid the needle beneath Taemin’s skin and Taemin was lost in bliss and the haze of heroin.

\---

The next time he woke up, he was curled up against Key’s side. Key was watching him, running his fingers through his hair.

“How long did I sleep?” Taemin asked, his voice rough. His mouth was so dry it was hard to speak.

“It’s just past ten in the morning now,” Key said. His face was twisted into something Taemin couldn’t quite recognize. His mind was still reaching up through the last dregs of the drug. He reached out to smooth the expression off Key’s face, but Key pulled away. “Can you get up yet?”

Taemin nodded, pushing himself to his knees on the bed. “What’s wrong?”

“You scare me sometimes,” Key muttered, rising from the bed and turning his back on Taemin.

“I’m not going to overdose,” Taemin said, sitting up against the wall. “I’m careful, and I’ve got you here, haven’t I?”

“That’s what they all say until they don’t say anything.” Key sighed, rubbing his forehead like he had a headache, but when he turned back to Taemin, the smile was back on his face. “We’re almost out of rice, so I’ll have to go shopping, if you’re comfortable here.”

“I can go. I don’t even think you got any sleep last night.”

Key did look exhausted. He worried too much about the boy who had already accepted he wouldn’t make it to twenty. It was a miracle he hadn’t already died as it was.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m fully capable of going grocery shopping,” Taemin informed him.

Key pressed the list and some money into his hand, with the firm reminder that the money was _only_ to be used for food. Taemin accepted both the money and the admonishment. He had, in the past, used the money to buy drugs.

It was late spring, but even so, Taemin tugged a jacket on. It was easier if he didn’t have people staring at the track marks on his arms, even if most of them in the area already recognized him. It wasn’t as though Makoto made an effort to hide what he was doing. And Taemin was fairly recognizable, with his hair as bright as it was. This neighborhood was practically prostitute central anyway. Even the streetwalkers on the other side of the city knew who he was, and the ones who didn’t work for Makoto hated him for it. Truthfully, the ones who _did_ hated him too, but they didn’t dare do anything about it.

It was a twenty-minute-walk to the store from their house, but by cutting through the park he could trim five minutes off the trip, and hopefully get home in time to convince Key to go back to sleep. It was midday; the dealers and hookers who worked there wouldn’t show up for another couple of hours. Of most concern was the police, who wouldn’t show up for a few hours after that.

He made it to the store and bought what Key had asked for, and was half way across the park before he ran into trouble. He heard a low whistle from behind him and sighed, brushing his hair out of his face; he’d thought it was only the women who’d had to deal with that. But he didn’t stop, didn’t speed up. He just kept walking, bag held snugly in his arms.

“Hey,” one of them said, loud enough for half the neighborhood to hear, “that’s the whore, isn’t it? The one who looks like a girl?”

One of the other men made an agreeing sound. “Wonder if he squeals like a girl?”

“You couldn’t afford me,” Taemin offered over his shoulder. He knew he shouldn’t have spoken. It was always better to just keep walking. They usually got bored and left. Even so, he was surprised when one of them caught his shoulder, jerking him to a halt.

Another one came up behind him while he was trying to pry his shoulder free and ripped the bag from his hands, kneeing Taemin in the stomach. He collapsed to his knees, feeling the still-frozen ground tearing open his jeans and skin. He forgot about that quickly enough when a third backhanded him across the face. He tasted blood.

It was the fourth man who grabbed Taemin by the hair and pulled his head back. Taemin was forced to uncurl, leaving his torso open for the men to kick and punch as they saw fit. Taemin knew pain well enough to keep his cries from being too loud, but even he couldn’t stay completely silent.

Several eternities later, the man released Taemin’s hair and shoved him to the ground. He hit hard and his nose and mouth gushed fresh blood. The first man who had spoken offered one last kick at Taemin, catching him just beneath the ribs. Whatever breath he’d regained in the few seconds of respite whooshed from his lungs again, leaving him coughing and heaving as he tried to vomit up anything left in his stomach.

Taemin stayed there for a long time, body shaking with pain and weakness. He’d never been physically strong, but nothing had ever required him to be. It was better to be small and fast than strong and bulky on the streets. And his heroin use had, if he was going to be honest with himself, not helped. He was skinnier than ever; he hardly ate, he hardly even slept some nights.

He had almost drawn on enough strength to try pulling himself to his knees when he heard feet running toward him. He flinched, certain one of the men had come back to take from him what other men paid for.

But the hand that landed on his back was gentle and the voice was almost familiar.

“Are you okay?”

A second voice, an unfamiliar one, joined the first. “What happened?”

And then a third. “He looks pretty bad, Minho. Maybe we should call an ambulance…”

The information crashed together in Taemin’s head. _Minho._ From last night. If he had the strength, he would have sworn. He could only hope that the bruising and swelling on his face made him look differently than he had last night. His hair was, unfortunately, distinctive.

“I’m fine,” Taemin said, but he had to stop to spit out blood after the first word. He forced himself to his knees and sat there for a few seconds, waiting for the world to stop spinning.

It was showing no signs of slowing when Minho knelt in front of him. He knew then that Minho knew exactly who he was.

“You don’t look fine.”

Taemin started to shake his head but groaned when everything started tilting again. He pressed his hands to his face, feeling the dirt and grit beneath the blood. “No hospitals,” he said. It hurt to talk. It hurt to breathe, actually. It hurt to do anything.

“Are you sure?” one of the people behind him asked. “This looks pretty bad…”

“I’ve had worse,” Taemin said. It might have been a lie. He wasn’t actually sure how bad he was hurt. He wouldn’t know until he got back to Key. He’d never actually been beaten up before. He’d come back from appointments battered and bruised, but never outside of the bedroom.

“If you won’t go to the hospital, can we at least help you somewhere? Back home, maybe?” The third one was speaking again. Taemin wished he could turn around and see who these two people were, but he was afraid if he turned his head he would black out.

“Jonghyun, can you help me get him up?”

Oh _that_ name was familiar. He’d heard it enough the previous night.

Two sets of hands took him by the shoulders and pulled him to his feet. Minho was on his left, an arm gingerly around Taemin’s waist. Nothing seemed to be broken, even if his body hurt.

“Where do you want to go?” Jonghyun asked, briefly appearing in Taemin’s line of sight. He could see why Minho liked him, although not why he chose to come to Taemin. They looked nothing alike.

“The house over there,” Taemin said, pointing. He heard the soft breath from behind him and grimaced. The ‘house’ was barely more than a pair of rooms, and it looked that way on the outside. It was dingy; the windows were boarded. It may have been one of the better houses Makoto had to offer, but it told everyone who knew how to look what it was. It was a whorehouse, even if only two whores lived there full-time.

Taemin had only made it a few steps when his knees buckled. He almost took Minho down with him, but after a brief stagger the taller man managed to keep them both standing. Jonghyun’s hand caught Taemin’s elbow, helping to steady him until the flashes of black faded from his eyes. Minho lifted him in his arms, carrying him as easily as if he were a small child.

“What are you doing?” Taemin demanded. “Put me down.”

“Do you want to ever get back to your house?” Minho asked. “You’re bleeding all over the place.”

Taemin wanted to argue, but he figured Minho was right. He definitely couldn’t get back to his house on his own, not without practically crawling. Minho could carry him faster than he could walk, which was its own shame that Taemin would consider later.

They reached the steps in a few minutes. Really, ‘the steps’ was just a block of wood to lift them out of the mud in the summer and was generally useless in the mess that came with spring. Taemin’s side was burning where it had been pressed against Minho’s chest. He almost thought something was broken there, if not for the fact that he’d had broken ribs before, and even the pain he was in now was nothing compared to that.

“Let me down,” Taemin said, softly enough for only Minho to hear. “Just let me walk into my own house.”

Minho let him down slowly, keeping his hand under Taemin’s elbow in case he fell again. He managed to keep his feet, pushing the door open and kicking off his shoes.

“Key?” he called.

The house was silent. He was a little surprised, but grateful. This would give him a chance to at least wash off the worst of the blood.

“Thank you,” Taemin said, turning to face the three men. “I can take it from here.”

“I don’t think we should just leave you,” Jonghyun said. He looked uncomfortable, either at the thought of staying in a whorehouse or of leaving Taemin alone, but he couldn’t quite tell which one it was. Possibly both.

“I’ll be fine. I just need to rest.”

“You guys go on ahead,” Minho said suddenly. “I’ll stay until someone else gets here.”

“You sure?” the third asked.

“Yeah, go ahead. I’ll meet you at Insomnia.”

Taemin didn’t even have time to argue before Jonghyun passed the remnants of Taemin’s grocery bag into Minho’s hands and took the other one outside with him.

“If you’re looking for another fuck, you’ll have to come back later,” Taemin snapped, striding to the best of his meager ability toward their room.

Minho followed him, setting the bag on the small table. “Actually, I wanted to thank you.”

“Thank me?” Taemin asked. There was a note pinned to the pillow and he walked toward it. Key always kept the notes as basic as he could: _Gone all day. Back tonight._ At least he’d get a chance to nap before he had to explain to Key what had happened.

“You could have told them. You didn’t.”

“It’s not my deal who fucks who, or who wants to fuck who. I’m just here to do my job.”

He tugged off his jacket and walked straight to the bedside table. The needle and tourniquet were lying there, prepared for him. He wrapped the piece of rubber around his upper arm and tugged it tight with his teeth.

“What are you doing?”

Taemin gave him a look that clearly said he thought Minho was an idiot and waved the needle. “Heroin.”

“No, that’s not what I--” Minho caught his hand and tugged the tourniquet free. “What--”

Taemin pulled free, his other hand yanking at the tourniquet. “You have no say in what I do. I don’t even know why you’re still here.”

Minho managed to keep hold of the band, looking down at Taemin with an expression that crinkled his forehead. “How old are you?”

“Does it matter?” Taemin demanded. He was tired, he hurt, and he just wanted another hit so it would go away. He _needed_ it to go away.

“I’m curious,” Minho said, taking a seat at the table. He rested his elbows on his knees and looked up at Taemin expectantly.

“I’m eighteen. You only did one illegal thing last night, don’t worry. Now _give_.”

“You’re eighteen, you’re an addict, and you’re… Shouldn’t you be at school or something?”

“Not all of us get to go to school,” Taemin snapped, giving up on him for the moment, walking into the bathroom to inspect the damage. He bit back a few curses as he tried to wash off the blood to see the extent of the cuts.

“Can I help?” Minho asked, appearing in the doorway.

“No.”

“Your hands are shaking.”

Taemin was in the midst of formulating a response when his vision darkened, Minho’s voice disappearing behind a loud rushing in his ears. The washcloth dropped from his fingers and he braced himself against the sink, eyes closing.

Faintly, he felt someone press against him, strong arms holding him on his feet. He could hear whispers of a voice. Almost as quickly as it came, the sound faded from his ears and his vision cleared, but it left him weak, breath coming in shallow gasps.

“I’ve got you,” Minho said. He was holding Taemin almost too comfortably, arms wrapped around him from behind. Taemin wanted to pull away, but he was shaking too hard to speak, and he doubted he could keep on his feet if Minho let go.

Suddenly he realized he was moving, Minho was walking him out of the bathroom and laying him on the bed. He disappeared for a moment, but came back with one of the bowls Taemin hadn’t managed to put away yet and the washcloth from the bathroom. Minho dipped the cloth into the water in the bowl and began bathing Taemin’s face.

The water was warm and Minho’s hands were gentle. Taemin could see him watching his face, looking for any signs of pain. Whenever Taemin flinched, he pulled back immediately, murmuring apologies. It surprised him. Other than Key who was pathologically unable to be truly mean to him, nobody had ever been this kind to him in his life.

“What’s your name?” Minho asked abruptly. Taemin looked at him, frowning.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Well, I can’t keep calling you ‘boy’ in my head, can I?”

“How long do you plan to stay here?”

Minho sighed, setting the bowl and washcloth aside. “Are you always this difficult?”

“I’m a little confused right now, because last night you paid to fuck me, and now you’re sitting in my house, where none of my… clients… have ever been, and you’re washing my face like I’m a sick kid. And you stole my drugs! And my… All of me… hurts.”

“It’s just right over there,” Minho corrected, gesturing behind him. “And just because you’re a prostitute doesn’t mean you need to assume everyone is here for sex.”

Taemin closed his eyes. He didn’t know how to explain to this man that they always were there for sex. He didn’t know why he felt like he needed to explain.

Minho’s hand pressed against his forehead. “Are you okay?”

Taemin was saved from answering by the sound of the door opening. “Taemin, you home?”

“I’m here,” Taemin called, pushing himself up. He couldn’t do anything about his face, or his clothes, but at least the worst of the blood had been washed away. Minho stayed seated, although he turned to face the door.

“I can’t believe I only got a hundred thousand won,” Key called from the doorway. Taemin could hear him coming closer as he spoke. “All of that effort for… Oh _Taemin_. What happened?”

Taemin grimaced, climbing to his feet as quickly as he could. Minho’s hand slipped beneath his elbow in case he started to black out again. Taemin saw Key’s eyes flick to Minho’s hand and then back.

“I ran into some trouble.”

He could see Key taking a deep breath, censoring himself. He didn’t know that Minho had been with Taemin last night, that Minho already knew what they were. “How many of them were there? Did you know them?”

“Some of the usual types.” The ones who thought they were better than them just because they didn’t have to fuck someone for money. The ones who saw men coming in and out of the house. Probably the ones who wanted to go into the house, but were too scared to do it themselves.

“How many of them were there?”

Four. Maybe five, I’m not sure. Better than it could have been.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Minho rock back in the chair, heard the breath hissing between his teeth.

“Taemin… You just can’t keep quiet, can you?”

Taemin knew he wasn’t expected to answer, but he felt a faint flush of shame climbing his cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

Key leaned forward and hugged him, almost hard enough to hurt beyond the dull pain in his ribs. “I’m just glad you’re okay. I’ll be back in a minute.”

He took Minho by the arm and led him to the entry way, beyond Taemin’s hearing. When he came back, he had a pensive expression on his face, but refused to tell Taemin what it was about. He just sat on the edge of the bed and obligingly tied the tourniquet around Taemin’s upper arm.


	2. Chapter 2

Minho took Key’s polite but firm thanks, which translated to “Thank you, now please leave” and walked outside, heading back toward the park and eventually Insomnia, the coffee shop where Jonghyun and Jinki should still be waiting for him. He felt sick at what he’d seen. He shouldn’t have cared. Taemin was supposed to be just some nameless prostitute to get himself over Jonghyun.

Except that he wasn’t a nameless prostitute anymore. He was a scared kid with a name, and he’d looked so surprised when Minho had denied that he was there for sex. It must have been a novel concept to him, the idea that he mattered for something more than his body.

He sighed when he entered the city proper, trying to drive the boy into the back of his mind. He didn’t have time to worry about this, not with everything else going on right now. He was too busy with work to get distracted, especially as close as they were to starting filming.

That didn’t stop him from sighing again when he saw Jonghyun and Jinki sitting in their customary spot through the coffee shop window. He didn’t really want to go in, but Jonghyun happened to glance through the window and his face lit up into one of his ridiculous smiles. He pointed, drawing Jinki’s attention. Minho lifted his hand in response.

“So?” Jonghyun asked when Minho joined them with a cup of coffee in his hand, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

Minho paused long enough to smack his shoulder before sitting at the table beside Jinki. “I don’t think he’s okay, but his roommate didn’t seem too worried. Well, he seemed worried, but not like he was going to do anything about it.”

“I’m sure they know how to take care of themselves.”

“He was…” Minho glanced around and lowered his voice, even though the nearest people were three tables away and were staring into each other’s eyes like someone had glued them there. It made him faintly nauseous. “He’s a heroin addict. He’s an eighteen-year-old heroin addict living in a house that looks like it’s about to fall down around his head and he seems happy to be there.”

“He’s probably happy he’s not out on the streets,” Jinki said, folding his arms on the table in front of him. Jonghyun tried to look interested, but his eyes were tracking the path of the waitress as she moved toward a table near them.

Minho forced his gaze away from Jonghyun and back to Jinki. Jinki gave him a sad half-smile. “But he’s _eighteen_. He should be in school or working--”

“He _is_ working,” Jonghyun offered.

Minho hit his shoulder again. “Ogle the waitress and stop trying to help.”

“Why is this bothering you so much?” Jonghyun asked. “He’s just a prostitute. I get that he’s a kid, but that doesn’t change the fact that sometimes bad things happen to the wrong people. If he wanted out, he could get out.”

“I don’t think he can.”

“Well then, there’s nothing you can do about it, is there?”

Even Jinki hit Jonghyun this time. “What is with you today? Go flirt with her, if that’s what you want.”

“You think she’s interested?”

“She’s almost dropped two drinks since I got here,” Minho said. “I think she’s interested. Go get her number.”

Jonghyun stood, fixing his smirk in place and sauntering up to the counter. Jinki put his hand on Minho’s arm.

“You okay?” Minho nodded. “He’s a prat,” Jinki said, tugging his glasses off and rubbing at his eyes.

Minho made a sympathetic noise. “Are _you_ okay? You look miserable.”

“It was a late night. I have to stop letting Jonghyun convince me to have _one more drink_. I don’t even know who he went home with last night. It might have been a man.” He grimaced. “I don’t know how _I_ got home last night.”

Minho managed, just barely, to turn his snort into a strange sort of hacking cough. Jinki was not fooled.

“Speaking of which, where were you last night? We stopped by your place to see if you wanted to come with us--”

“I was out,” Minho said much too quickly.

Jinki raised his eyebrows, but let it pass, glancing at his watch. He sighed. “I’ve got to get to class. I’ll see you later. You… can just leave Jonghyun here. He’ll spend a night with her and decide she’s not his type. You’ve still got a chance.”

“I’ll come with you. I might as well get to the hotel early and set up.”

Jinki picked up his briefcase and passed Minho his messenger bag. They left their half-full cups on the table. Minho glanced over his shoulder as they stepped outside. Jonghyun was oblivious, lounging against the counter. The waitress’s too-loud laughter followed him out the door.

Jinki slung his arm around Minho’s shoulder. “You could always tell him, you know.”

Minho snorted, drawing away. “I could.”

“But you won’t.”

“Exactly. You’ve known Jonghyun as long as I have. We both know that even if I told him, nothing would ever come of it. He’s too…”

“Distractible?” Jinki offered.

“Yeah, sure.” Minho shrugged, adjusting the strap on his bag. “It’s whatever it is. Don’t you have to go to the university? The subway’s that way.”

“I’ve got time.”

Minho gave him a grateful smile and let Jinki walk with him, even if they walked the rest of the way in silence. It didn’t stop him from feeling his stomach clench every time they walked past one of the city’s apparently innumerable redheads; he swore there had never been this many before today, but Jinki’s solid presence made him feel a little better anyway.

Jinki stopped him with a hand on his shoulder before he walked into the hotel lobby. “I think, maybe, if you’re so worried about it, you could go back.”

Minho stared at him. He’d heard the words, but they came out all jumbled together and with completely no context to help him figure out what was going on in Jinki’s head. “What language are you even speaking right now?”

“To the prostitute. The kid, I mean. If you’re so worried about him, why don’t you go back? Bring him some chocolate, or something.”

“I’m not _dating_ him,” Minho protested.

“Well, I don’t know what you bring to say ‘Sorry you got beaten up because you’re a hooker,’” Jinki said. “Take some carrots then.”

Minho shook his head and sent Jinki on his way. Jungsu and Sungmin were waiting for him in the lobby. He threw himself into his work, insisting the three of them go over all the storyboards they had. He could tell they thought it was excessive; he’d designed most of the storyboards himself and he’d already okayed them two or three times.

They went along with it for a few hours, helping him make the inconsequential notes, discussing the differences between framing the shot one way versus another. They had enough when Minho pulled the script up on his computer to compare it to the storyboards.

“Minho,” Jungsu began, “I think we’re set for filming.”

“Is everything okay?” Sungmin added. “You seem a little… driven today.”

Minho sat back, rubbing his hand across his forehead. He’d gotten the work done that he’d needed to, plus resolved a ridiculous number of unnecessary details, but none of it had banished Taemin from his mind for more than a few minutes at a time.

“Your mom’s not sick again, is she?”

Minho shook his head. “No, she’s fine. I’ve got a lot on my mind right now.”

“Maybe you should let us take care of the last-minute things before filming starts,” Sungmin said. “That’s why we’re here, after all.”

“I don’t think there _are_ any last minute things,” Jungsu said, sending a grin in Minho’s direction. “If we’d had the actors and a camera here, the whole movie would have been shot already.”

Minho laughed. “Sorry.”

Jungsu stood, stretching. “You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t get a little obsessed once in a while. I’m going to get something to eat. Want to come?”

Sungmin accepted immediately, but Minho declined. “No. I need to head back to my apartment. I think things are growing in the fridge by now.”

That was how, at nine o’clock that night, he ended up standing on a cement block that may have once served as a step in front of a house that was not his own, with his arms full of groceries and take-out food.

The door swung open, revealing Key with his arms crossed. “What are you doing here?”

“I brought food,” Minho said. He realized very abruptly that he had no idea what he was doing there, but he could see that food had been the right way to entice his way in. Key was skinnier than Taemin, and he’d already thought Taemin was unhealthily thin. His hipbones jutted out from his skin and even his ribs were so defined Minho had barely been able to believe it. He’d been able to see the outlines of Taemin’s vertebrae through his shirt.

“We don’t need your sympathy.”

“I’m bringing food, not sympathy.”

For a second he thought that Key was going to slam the door in his face, but after a moment of indecision, Key stepped aside.

“He’s sleeping off his…” Key hesitated, reaching for the bag of food.

“Heroin?” Minho offered, stepping inside.

“But he should be awake soon. He’s usually a little out of it for a while. I might be able to get him to eat something.”

Key didn’t even glance toward the ominously shut door through which Minho had been directed the night before. He took Minho instead into the room that he’d helped Taemin into earlier that day.

Taemin was laying there, blankets half thrown off, so still that Minho almost thought he wasn’t breathing. When he looked back, Key was watching him, a strange expression on his face. As soon as Minho met his eyes, he looked away.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Minho began quietly, accepting the chair Key indicated, “how do you afford to live here?”

“Taemin makes enough to keep our… patron,” he only half choked on the word, “happy. As long as he’s happy, we stay here. If Taemin’s out for too long, we’ll end up on the streets again. I’m just hoping that Taemin gets better fast enough. I don’t think he can handle healing from this and losing the drugs at the same time.”

“Is he your brother?”

Key laughed. It was a hard, broken sound. “No. Makoto likes the money he makes enough that he doesn’t want him to be alone. Makoto picked me to stay with Taemin, to make sure he doesn’t overdose and kill himself while he’s still worth the five or six hundred thousand an hour. Once he’s not…” Key shrugged. “I’m not leaving him while he’s still alive. However long that is.”

Minho was still trying to come up with something to say when he heard a soft sound from the bed. Key was up, an arm beneath Taemin’s shoulders and helping him to sit, before Minho even realized what the sound was.

“How are you feeling?”

“Sick.” Taemin gestured to his stomach.

“I know,” Key said, smoothing Taemin’s hair back from his face. “I’m sorry. Is your head feeling any better?”

“It hurts less. I don’t feel dizzy anymore.”

“Good.” Key began helping Taemin to the edge of the bed, his body still blocking Minho from Taemin’s view. “There’s some food here for you.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You need to eat or you’re not going to get better.”

“What is _he_ doing here?” Taemin asked suddenly.

“Minho brought us the food. He wanted to see how you were doing.”

“And you let him in?”

Key just sighed and slung Taemin’s arm around his shoulders, helping him to the table. It took him a few seconds to convince Taemin to start eating, but once he did, the boy seemed to realize he was hungry.

“Come with me,” Key said, catching Minho by the arm and pulling him to the entryway. Minho followed, unsure what had caused such a change in Key’s demeanor. Key shut the door behind them and rounded on Minho. “Why are you here? Honestly.”

“I’m…” Minho stopped, half a dozen lies frozen on the tip of his tongue. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know. Great,” Key said. Minho would have had to been deaf, or exceptionally obtuse, to not hear the sarcasm in his voice. “I have to go out soon and I can’t leave him alone. I need to know if it’s safe to leave him with you. I’d rather leave him with one of us, but I don’t trust them any more than I trust you.”

“I’m not going to hurt him.”

Key talked right over him. “I know what you all think of us. Just because you pay us for sex, you think that we’re only here for that, but Taemin’s in no shape for it right now. If you’re thinking about getting some kind of payment for helping him here and bringing food, you’re not going to get it from him.”

“It’s not that,” Minho protested. “I’m worried about him. He’s just a kid.”

“That obviously wasn’t an issue last night.” Minho tried to argue, but Key kept talking. “If your plan was to use this as some way to get another night with him, just come to me. He needs time to heal, and I don’t want him getting hurt again.”

“That’s not--”

Key ignored him and opened the door, walking back into the room. Minho stood there for another second, frozen mid-word before he followed Key back inside. Taemin was still sitting at the table, but his head was in his hands.

“Taeminnie?” Key was at his side, tilting Taemin’s head up to look at his eyes.

“I’m okay,” Taemin mumbled. “It just… started spinning suddenly.”

“I think you should take him to the hospital,” Minho said. “At least make sure there’s nothing seriously wrong.”

“With what money?” Key asked, half-turning to face Minho. “Everything we have goes to Makoto and whatever’s left goes to food. We can’t afford it.”

“I’ll be okay,” Taemin argued. “It’s getting better.”

Key glanced down at the plastic watch on his wrist and swore, grabbing a jacket from the floor. “I’m going to be late. I’ll be back soon.”

Almost before Minho knew what had happened, Key was out the door, having ordered him to not let Taemin shoot up again that night and to make sure he ate whatever he wanted, and then he was alone with a prostitute who was eyeing him like he was some sort of feral dog who had snuck into their house.

“Well,” Taemin said, still seated at the table. “It’s not often men come back three times in a row.”

“I would have helped you regardless,” Minho said. He very much did not want to get drawn into an argument with Taemin. He was quiet enough with Key, but as soon as he was alone with Minho, and there wasn’t money involved, he was hostile enough for three people.

Taemin made to stand up, and managed it for a good five seconds before he wavered and almost fell. Minho caught him, an arm around his waist. “Let’s get you to the bed.”

“I figured that’s what you were here for.”

“I’m not here for sex,” Minho said. He had to admit that the exact moment he chose to utter the words was probably more than a little inappropriate. He had an arm around Taemin’s waist, the other hand and one knee braced on the bed while he lowered him down.

Taemin laughed. It was a surprising sound, high and clear, not at all bitter like Key’s had been. He looked surprised at the sound, but didn’t say anything, letting Minho ease him back onto the bed.

He even let Minho pull the blankets up around him, watching him with an expression Minho couldn’t quite figure out. Making faces that Minho couldn’t identify seemed to be a common occurrence in this house.

“So, Minho. What do you do for a living?” Taemin asked, drawing his knees to his chest.

“I’m a director.”

Taemin was staring at him. “A director? For films?”

“We’re starting a new one in a few days.”

“What’s it like?”

Minho grinned and told him about it. They talked for over an hour, Taemin listening half in awe, interrupting him every couple of seconds with questions. He looked happy.

It shouldn’t have surprised him the way it did. Taemin may have had a miserable life, but not everything had been destroyed yet. Minho could still see sparks of defiance in him that had already been beaten out of Key. In a few more years, Taemin would be as gone as him, provided he lived that long.

That sent an uncomfortable twinge through his chest. He was sitting on a bed with an eighteen-year-old who was probably going to die of an overdose or some disease. Without thinking, he reached out to brush some hair from Taemin’s face.

Taemin flinched away, catching Minho’s wrist in a surprisingly strong grip. He looked at him for a few long seconds and then released his hand. Minho drew his hand back.

“I’m really not going to hurt you.”

Taemin shrugged, glancing down. “It’s a reflex. I don’t usually let people touch my face.”

“Oh.”

“It’s too intimate,” he continued, still staring down at the blanket at his side. “Key doesn’t like to kiss, but he will if he thinks he has to. You learn to do what needs to be done. But… If you want, I guess you could.”

Minho leaned in and brushed the offending bit of hair away, more because Taemin had granted him permission than out of any real need to move the hair. “How are you feeling?”

“Better, actually,” Taemin said, looking up at him again. “I think the food helped.”

“Good.”

The door flew open with a crash and Key walked in, his jacket pulled tight around himself. He threw a wad of cash onto the table. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“You should be gone when he gets back,” Taemin said, watching him disappear into the bathroom.

“Is he okay?”

“He’ll be fine. He just needs some time after appointments like these.”

Minho should have been bothered by the ease with which the euphemisms passed Taemin’s lips. He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, the receipt for some takeout, and wrote on it, pressing it into Taemin’s hand.

“This is my number. If you ever need anything, call me.”


	3. Chapter 3

Taemin clenched the piece of paper in his hand and watched him walk out the door. He didn’t know why he did it, but when Key walked out of the bathroom, he slipped the piece of paper beneath the mattress.

“How was it?” Taemin asked, turning his attention to his friend.

“I feel disgusting,” Key said, flinging the towel toward the pile of dirty laundry in the corner. It fell a few feet short of his goal. “Everything is…” he made a disgusted sound.

“Come here,” Taemin said, holding out his arms.

Key paused long enough to flick out the lights and dropped onto the bed beside Taemin, letting him wrap him in his arms. Taemin shivered when the cold water dripped onto his arm, but drew Key in close.

“He’s gone. You’re safe here.”

Key buried his head against Taemin’s shoulder. Taemin could feel him shaking, although whether it was with disgust, anger, or something else, he couldn’t tell. Taemin felt tears prickling at the corners of his eyes and he tried to blink them away. Key never cried, even on nights like this when Taemin knew he wanted nothing more than to sink into the bed and never get out again.

He picked a tune, some old nameless thing he didn’t even know how he learned, and hummed it under his breath. It wasn’t quite a lullaby, Key would have hit him, but it was near enough. It only took a few minutes for Key to relax against him and fall asleep. He was always exhausted after nights like this.

It took Taemin much longer to fall asleep, distracted by the memory of a kind hand brushing through his hair. He shouldn’t have cared. He had Minho’s number, but he was never going to call it. Minho was never going to come back. Who would willingly choose to deal with someone like Taemin, a prostitute and an addict? He did hate, sometimes, that horrific itching and aching and burning that spread through his body when he was waiting on Makoto’s next supply of heroin, the nights he spent alternately freezing and burning until Key had to give up on sleeping all together just to keep him from falling apart. But he hated it less than he loved the rush, less than he hated the memories of people’s hands on him.

It was two weeks full before Key pronounced him healthy enough to return to work, which meant a solid three days of Taemin making appearances on the prescribed streets, gently reinstating himself into the rest of Makoto’s group. There were no few of them who looked disappointed when he first showed up, and a few more who were obviously angry. Taemin was popular enough among his type of customers that most of the rest were second choices.

But by the end of the third day, word had made its way around that Taemin had returned, and the men started to come back. Makoto sent word that Taemin had his first appointment. He didn’t sound pleased at how long it had taken, but he knew that Taemin’s greatest allure, aside from his age, was his perfection. Makoto couldn’t do anything about the track marks marring his arms, but he knew that any bruises or broken bones just made him that much more worthless.

He fell back into his routine easily. Any night he didn’t have an appointment, which became rarer the longer he was back, he joined the rest of the prostitutes on the streets, regardless of temperature or weather. It became an art, ignoring the words hurled at them from passing cars. They all became so good at it after a while that they could almost pretend they didn’t hear it. The rest of the nights he spent in bed with whatever man was willing to pay Makoto’s price.

He spent his days learning what he could about the men who hired his body, because it was his job. It was what he did best and it was why he and Key slept inside, in a bed, even if the heating in the house sometimes failed and their showers were only usually warm.

Taemin spent most of the rest of the time in a haze of heroin and whatever alcohol they could afford. It was a development Key hated, one that signaled the beginning of the end of Taemin’s life. He was getting careless, no longer insisting on condoms, sharing needles with whatever addict he ended up next to on the street.

By the end of that month, he’d forgotten the number beneath the mattress, by the end of the next month, he’d forgotten the man to whom it had belonged, except the occasional memory of arms helping him to the bed. By the third month, Key was getting frustrated.

“ _Listen_ to me!”

“I’m listening.” Taemin’s voice was so slurred with alcohol that Key could hardly understand him.

“You’re not!” Key took a deep breath, watching Taemin try to tug the tourniquet around his arm. His hands were shaking and the band kept slipping out of his fingers. Key slipped his fingers beneath it and pulled it free. “Taeminnie--”

“What?” Taemin asked, glaring up at him.

“You’re going to kill yourself if you keep going on like this.”

“So?” Taemin asked, yanking on the band in Key’s hands. “You know I don’t really need this right?”

“I know you prefer to use it.”

Taemin watched him for a second and pulled back on the tourniquet hard enough to free it from Key’s fingers. He’d barely managed to wind it around his arm when Key grabbed it back, tossing it across the room. Taemin made to follow it, but Key caught his wrist.

“Please, please just listen to me for a second. You can’t keep this up. You’re going to die and I can’t watch another one of my friends die.”

“You don’t _make_ friends in this business. I’m sure if you’re real good and beg just right,” Taemin couldn’t possibly miss the innuendo in those words, “Makoto will let you stay here with whoever replaces me.”

Taemin had been tugging insistently at his wrist while he spoke and Key let go with a frustrated curse. He wanted to grab Taemin by the shoulders and shake him until he listened. Taemin ignored him, retrieving the band from the floor behind the table.

“That’s not what this is about, Taemin. I don’t care about this house or the money or any of it. I care about you.”

Taemin paused, glancing up at him. It was a good sign, better than anything Key had gotten out of him in weeks.

“You didn’t even know me before Makoto put us together.”

“That was _three years_ ago. I know you better than you know yourself now. Taemin, please. This isn’t right. I can’t do this by myself!”

Nothing. There was no response. Key had to watch as Taemin finally succeeded in winding the tourniquet around his arm and yanked it tight. He turned away when Taemin brought the needle up, but he recognized the soft sounds, even up to the gentle, almost relaxed, sigh Taemin made when the drug kicked in, the stumbling as he made his way to the bed.

Key covered his face with his hands. He didn’t know the last time he’d cried, didn’t know the last time he’d even felt the urge to cry, but he sank to his knees in the kitchen and cried for the child who didn’t care enough for himself to be afraid to die.

He didn’t know what to do. Taemin didn’t want to stop. He didn’t care what the men made him do, accepting their demands the same as their caresses.

He wanted to find some way to remind Taemin of who he was. He wanted him to go back to the sixteen-year-old he’d been when Key first met him, awkward and uncomfortable with what he was doing. He didn’t think he could.

When the tears finally stopped, he felt dry and brittle. He stood, feeling so much older than twenty-one. The house was a mess and he needed to do something before he lost his mind. One of the packets Taemin’s powdered heroin came in was lying beside the bed. Key sighed and bent to pick it up.

It wasn’t a packet. It was a torn slip of paper with a name and number written on it. Key rocked back on his heels and looked at it for a long, long minute. He glanced over at Taemin and then hurried out of the house to find the nearest working phone. Taemin may have been out, but he didn’t want to risk him overhearing any part of this conversation from their house phone, provided it even worked.

The phone rang twice before a voice answered. “Hello?”

“Is this Minho?”

There was a pause. “Yeah.”

“This is Key. From… Taemin’s friend.”

Another pause, longer this time. “Is he… What’s wrong?”

“Can we meet somewhere?”

“Is he okay?”

“He’s alive.” _For the time being._ “I would rather talk about it face to face.”

“Where?”

“I’m at the coffee shop by the university.”

“Of course by the university,” Minho mumbled. “I’ll be there. Ten minutes.”

Key heard the phone disconnect and seven minutes later, Minho walked through the door, looking like he’d run the whole way. As soon as he saw Key, he crossed the room at sat at the table.

“Is he okay?”

“Nice to see you too,” Key snarked. When he saw the expression that crossed Minho’s face, he held up his hands in defeat. “He’s… less okay than he is alive.”

Minho raked a hand through his hair. “What does that mean?”

“He’s in bad shape,” Key said. “I’ve seen it happen before. He’s using too much, he’s drinking now, he forgets to be careful. You can live a long time in this job if you’re careful, but once you stop caring… You don’t live much longer.”

“How long has it been?”

Key shook his head. “Too long. If he doesn’t stop soon, I don’t think… It might be too late. Can you help him? You’re the only one he’s ever responded to like this. He doesn’t even listen to me now. He doesn’t listen to anyone. Makoto’s getting tired of it, but Taemin’s still pulling in just enough money for Makoto to keep him.”

“What makes you think he’ll listen to me?”

“You’re the only chance he’s got. He’s never really given a damn about what Makoto thinks, so long as he gets his drugs, and he doesn’t care about me anymore. There is no one else.”

“When can I see him?”

“Tonight. After nine.”

Key let out a sigh of relief, leaning back into his chair. Taemin had a chance. It was slim and depended a lot on Minho’s willingness, but it was something. Before he could answer, a man came up behind Minho and put his hand on his shoulder. Minho jumped.

“Whoa, it’s just me.”

“Jinki. You scared me.”

“I noticed,” Jinki murmured, his hand still on Minho’s shoulder. “So, is this…” he raised his eyebrows in a way that Key was certain signified something, but he wasn’t sure what it was.

Minho, however, got it. He shook his head firmly. “No. No, Jinki, this is Key. He’s a…”

Key offered his best smile. “We have a mutual friend who’s sick right now. I was just filling Minho in on how he was doing.” He stood. “I’ve got to get back to him. Minho, don’t forget. Jinki, nice to meet you.”

He made his escape before Jinki could say anything. He glanced back over his shoulder once and saw Jinki taking his vacated seat, a concerned frown on his face. He was cute, Key decided, before promptly forgetting about him and focusing instead on how he was going to keep Taemin from shooting up or drinking anything until after nine, with his own appointment looming between.

Key glanced over a woman’s shoulder on the street, peering at the time on her cell phone. She gave him a dirty look, but he smiled in the most distracting way he knew how. She seemed a bit taken aback, giving him time to join the flow of pedestrians the other way. He had ten minutes to get to his appointment. It should give him just enough time to get there and get himself prepared.

He still hadn’t quite made a decision when he walked in the door to their house after the apartment, cradling a hurt shoulder and pretty sure the warmth he felt dripping down his side was blood. As soon as he saw Taemin, lying on his back in the bed, his arms splayed out to his sides, the words left his mouth before he consciously thought of them.

“You have an appointment tonight.”

Taemin lifted his head. “I do?”

“Makoto just told me. Up. In the shower. He’s not going to pay you if you smell.”

“I don’t smell.”

“I don’t care. Go.”

Taemin got out of bed, staggered once, and managed to right himself with a small frown. Key restrained himself. His reflex was to catch him, to right him and keep him from falling. But he’d already done that too much and that was probably more damaging to Taemin than anything he’d ever done to himself.

He didn’t seem to notice Key’s absence, making his way mostly steadily to the bathroom. He emerged not too long later, a towel wrapped around his waist. He looked almost normal, even if he was so much skinnier than he had been only weeks before.

“What do I need to know?” Taemin asked, brushing through his hair with his fingers.

“What?” Key asked. He’d been trying to surreptitiously rearrange the kitchen in such a way that all the alcohol mysteriously vanished.

“This appointment--what do I need to know?”

“He’s… Er…”

Taemin sat on the bed, arms crossed. “This isn’t a difficult question.”

Key decided the best route to take was to tell the truth. Mostly. “He’s a few years older than you. He has enough money to afford you for the night, but he’s not rich. It’ll be an easy one.”

“Married?”

“Single.”

Taemin made a soft noise. “Makes things easier. They’re always so uptight when they’re married. Or they’re assholes. Anything else?”

“He wants you sober. Word’s getting around that you’re not always… all there… during appointments.”

Taemin shrugged, glancing at the ancient clock on the wall. “What time is he coming?”

“Nine.”

“Less than an hour. That’s fine.”

He stood up and sauntered back into the bathroom. He looked much more sober than he had going in, but Key wasn’t certain how much of that was an act. Taemin was frighteningly good at acting.

“Taemin?”

“Yeah?” Taemin called from the bathroom. He didn’t even bother to look back out.

“Try to make a good impression on this one, okay?”

Silence. Key shrugged. It had been too much to hope for, probably. He turned his attention back to the bottle of whiskey on the counter and relocated it to the garbage. It clinked as it joined the rest of the bottles.

He only managed to locate one other bottle, already empty, before Taemin returned. He ignored Key, flopping back onto the bed into almost the same position he had been before. He lay there for forty minutes, staring up at the stained ceiling. Key attempted to start a conversation with him a few times, but never got further than two or three exchanges before he gave up.

A knock on the door, exactly two minutes early, drew Key to his feet. “Wait here.”

Taemin flicked his hand at him and stayed exactly where he was. Key closed the door to their room and opened the door to the outside. Minho was standing there, hands folded behind his back. He looked calm, but he started when the door opened.

“You’ll need to go in there.”

Minho stared at him. “You told him I was an appointment?”

“I didn’t tell him who you were. I did what I could, okay? Get in there.”


	4. Chapter 4

Minho let himself be ushered into the room. It was exactly the same as it had been the first time he walked in. Dark walls and dark bedding, windows opening onto a vacant lot behind the building. It even smelled the same, surprisingly unlike sex. He supposed Key made sure it was accommodating.

He paced up and down the length of the bed. If he remembered right, Taemin would appear in about three minutes, long enough for him to get comfortable with the room but not long enough for him to get too nervous. Unfortunately, he was already nervous. His heart was pounding in his throat, his hands sweaty. He tried to dry them on his jeans, but they didn’t do much good.

He went to sit on the end of the bed, but he remembered Taemin kneeling behind him, arms sliding over his shoulders and down his chest. Minho forced himself to stand still, crossing his arms too tightly over his chest and focusing on breathing like he hadn’t just run a marathon.

There was a discrete knock on the door and then it slipped open, depositing Taemin into the room. He was so skinny Minho’s chest hurt just to look at him. Taemin looked him over without really seeing; Minho couldn’t find any recognition in his eyes.

“What should I call you?” Taemin asked. The words hurt Minho more than he would have liked to admit.

“Minho.”

That got a reaction. Taemin’s head snapped up, eyes going wide. “Why are you…” He cleared his throat and nodded to himself, as though something had been confirmed. “Is there anything you’d like?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Of course it’s not.”

Taemin’s hands pressed against Minho’s stomach, fingers curling in his shirt and tugging at it. Minho caught his wrists. He could feel the bones shifting beneath his fingertips.

“Stop.”

He did, standing so still that Minho wanted to take him in his arms. Instead he took a step back, his hands still on Taemin’s wrists, and turned them so the inside of his arms were facing up.

Taemin’s arms were bruised, track marks running up both of them, where it had been only his left arm before. He ran one hand up along the skin on Taemin’s arm, feeling the dips and scars from too many needles. “Oh, Taemin.”

“Don’t do this. If you pretend you care, this gets so much harder.”

He was looking away, his one free hand against his side as though that could hide his other arm from Minho. Minho hesitated for just a moment before kissing his first two fingers and pressing them to the worst of the scars. Taemin had looked up at the sound.

“I’m not pretending. I told you to call me if you needed anything.”

“I don’t need anything. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. _This_ is not fine.”

Taemin yanked his arm free, rubbing at the skin Minho had touched. “I want you to leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Minho pulled a wad of bills out of his pocket and tossed them on the bed. He mentally grimaced at the amount. He didn’t really have to worry about money, but eight hundred thousand won just to talk to him hurt a little bit.

Taemin’s shoulders slumped. He obviously thought Minho meant sex, judging by the way he tugged off his own shirt. Minho hissed in sympathy when he saw how skinny Taemin really was. He couldn’t stop himself from running his fingers along Taemin’s ribs.

“You need to eat more.”

“M’not hungry. Ever, actually.”

“That’s the heroin talking. It’s an appetite suppressant.”

Taemin gave him a look that clearly said what he thought of Minho, and none of it was pleasant. “What are you paying me for? If you want your money’s worth, I’m going to have to get started soon.”

“I’m here for you, not for the sex.”

“Sometimes it’s the same thing.”

His comebacks were too quick, rehearsed. It left Minho a little taken aback. He’d thought he was used to Taemin’s snark, but this was not at all what he’d expected. “If all I wanted was sex, I would have come back months ago.”

Taemin shrugged. “So you’re slow. Not my problem.”

“I don’t know what Key thought I could do for you, but I came. You look like you’re half dead already.”

“Key asked you to come?”

“Taemin--”

Taemin pulled his shirt back over his head and turned for the door. Minho caught him by the shoulder, he could feel the bones there too, spinning him back around. Taemin jerked free, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand.

“Keep your money. Keep your stupid money and go back to your actors and your cameras and--”

In what had the potential to be the worst decision of the evening, Minho pulled Taemin into his arms. Taemin stiffened, pushing away, but when Minho didn’t let go he relaxed, marginally, and let his forehead rest against Minho’s chest.

“I didn’t come for Key. I came for you. Why didn’t you call me?”

“I sort of forgot,” Taemin said. Now that he wasn’t intent on disemboweling Minho with his words, his voice was softer, almost fragile. “It… Other things mattered more. Getting money, getting drugs. I forgot.”

Minho held Taemin tighter, resting his chin on Taemin’s head. “You’re just a kid, Taemin. You shouldn’t be here.”

He felt Taemin’s arms slip around his waist hesitantly, like he wasn’t sure if they could be there. “I’m hardly a kid.”

“You’re eighteen.”

“Nineteen. Key said my birthday was a couple of weeks ago. I think. Time gets kind of jumbled for me sometimes.”

Minho made a pained sound that he couldn’t quite hold back. “I can help you.”

“I don’t need help.”

“You’re going to die.”

“I don’t care.”

Minho pulled away, cupping Taemin’s face in his hands and tipping his head up so he could look straight in his eyes. “ _I_ care. I don’t care if you care, but I do. I’m not going to let you die in some gutter.”

“Why?”

Taemin sounded distraught, like he didn’t quite understand what was happening. Minho wasn’t sure he understood either, but he released him. Taemin stayed where he was, looking up at him.

“Why what?”

“Why do you care? I’m just an expensive whore--”

“You’re not ‘just’ anything. You’re…” A hundred things popped into Minho’s head right then, but none of them were what he wanted. He didn’t even know when Taemin had moved from the poor boy in the whorehouse to whatever he was seeing before him. He settled for saying, “You.”

“Why did Key go to you?”

“I think he thought I could help. I can, if you’ll let me.” Taemin didn’t reject him outright, which gave him a little hope. “Please, just let me try.”

“I don’t understand _why_.” Minho brushed his thumbs over Taemin’s cheekbones in response to the desperation tingeing his voice.

“You don’t have to. Just trust me. Can you trust me?”

Taemin nodded. Minho slid an arm around Taemin’s shoulder and led him out of the bedroom. Key was pacing and chewing on his thumbnail when they got back into the other room.

“Key, can I talk to you for a second?” Minho asked, shooing Taemin to sit on the bed. At Key’s nod, he led him into the entryway, closing the door behind them. “I need you to get rid of everything. All of the alcohol, all of the drugs. Even the needles. I don’t care what you do with any of it. Give it to a kid on the street for all I care, but there can’t be any in the house. This is going to be hard enough as it is.”

“He’s quitting?”

Minho made a face. “He’s… We haven’t discussed that yet. I consider it implied.”

“I’ll get everything out of the house that I know about. He might have some elsewhere though.”

“One more thing… Do you have some place else to stay? I think it’ll be better for all of us if it’s just Taemin and I through the worst of it.” Minho paused. “You can stay at my place if you need to. I don’t have any roommates.”

Minho wasn’t sure if he was sad or impressed that rounding up all of Taemin’s supplies, at Key put it, took longer than Key packing his stuff to go to Minho’s apartment. Then he left Minho alone with Taemin. Again.

Taemin was up, pacing the same route Key had been taking when they walked in. His hands were rubbing up and down on his thighs, fingers clenching and unclenching in the fabric of his pants. Every so often his hands would come up and rub at his upper arms.

“Are you cold?” Minho asked stepping in front of him.

Taemin’s steps paused when he ran out of room to walk and he looked up from where he had been contemplating the patterned linoleum. “No. I’m…” He fluttered his hands, flicking his fingers in Minho’s direction. “I need to…” He shouldered Minho aside. “I need to move.”

Minho let him, stepping out of his path. He watched him make another four passes before he finally spoke again.

“How long’s it been since your last…?”

Taemin looked at the clock at the wall as he passed by it. “No idea. Seven, eight hours maybe. Key usually keeps track for me.”

Minho sat on the edge of the bed, his elbows resting on his knees. “It’s going to start hurting soon, isn’t it?”

Taemin nodded, biting at his lower lip. Key had given Minho the quick rundown on withdrawal, or what he’d seen Taemin experience in the past while he was trying to secret the drugs out of the house. Most of it had been washed down the sink while Taemin had been banished to the back bedroom to clean. The rest was at the bottom of Key’s bag for disposal at Minho’s apartment.

Taemin walked over to the bed and fell back onto it, curling in on himself. “Can’t I just…”

Minho moved up to the head of the bed, stroking his fingers through Taemin’s hair. “No.”

Taemin accepted it silently, although he pulled his knees up tighter to his chest. Minho waited. He was very good at being patient when he needed to be. Whatever he and Taemin had was too fresh and too new for him to make assumptions, even if all he wanted to do was comfort him at the threshold of a week of agony.

He could feel him shivering against his side, hands once again compulsively clenching and unclenching. Minho held out his hand and Taemin grabbed it, hard enough to hurt, forehead pressing against Minho’s hip.

“I hate you,” Taemin muttered. He didn’t sound like he meant it. Not yet, anyway. Key told him that would come later.

“I know.”

Taemin stilled for a moment, head tipping back to look up at Minho. “Whatever I say… I don’t mean it, you know? I really don’t.”

“I know that too.”

Taemin looked up at him for a few more seconds before nodding, curling back in on himself. Minho settled in for a long night. He almost thought he would be able to handle the withdrawal until Taemin started shaking so violently it almost seemed as though he were convulsing. Everything deteriorated from there. He held Taemin as long as he would let him, then let him pace the room. When the exhaustion kicked in, he led him back to the bed and tucked him in. When he started sweating, but his skin froze, Minho covered and uncovered him continuously through the night.

Minho held Taemin’s hair back as he vomited up any ounce of food or liquid Minho tried to get in him. He sat by him in the bathroom when he was too weak to get to the bed on his own and it hurt too badly to let Minho carry him. Minho bathed him as best he could with rags and warm water from the sink, helping him to brush his teeth every time he vomited.

He ordered food that Taemin never touched. He slept when Taemin slept, holding him tight in his arms, both to comfort him and to keep him from escaping. He pinned him to the bed when he tried to leave. He disposed of what Taemin had stashed around the house, holding Taemin back with one arm while he rinsed the packets down the sink. He let Taemin scream at him, cursing him in increasingly creative ways, until after the third day all he said was, “I hate you, I hate you” in a broken voice.

Taemin managed to keep down a bland soup broth on the fifth day. He was weak and pale, his voice nothing more than a whisper. He had deep gouges down his arms from where Minho hadn’t been quick enough to stop him from scratching at the aches there. Several of his knuckles were raw from hitting the wall when Minho proved to be too elusive of a target for eyes that could barely focus. He was covered in bruises.

But he was alive. And the drugs were out of his system.

By the eighth day, he ate full meals, even if the portions wouldn’t have been enough to feed a four-year-old. He still wasn’t strong enough to do anything on his own. The first time he wanted to shower, Minho had to go with him and hold him up under the water while he cried at his own weakness.

On the tenth day, he caught Minho’s wrist when he went to go cook some more rice.

“Minho?” When Minho looked down at him, he said, “I… I don’t hate you.”

Minho smiled and gently ruffled Taemin’s hair. He continued to the kitchen. “Do you think you want Key to come home today?”

He could see Taemin look at himself in the reflection of one of the pans on the counter. “Tomorrow?”

Minho paused, poised to start pouring rice into water. “You don’t need to be afraid, you know. He’ll be proud of you.”

“I’m not afraid,” Taemin protested, lifting his chin. Minho almost smiled. “I’m just… concerned.”

Minho set the box down and sat on the bed beside him, lifting his arm so Taemin could curl up against him. The boy came to him almost reflexively now, looking to Minho for comfort.

“What are you afraid of?”

Taemin didn’t look up at him, his hand picking at stray threads on Minho’s pants. “What if I can’t do it?”

“You still have my number.” He hesitated, looking down at Taemin’s red hair, so freshly dyed that the roots hadn’t even begun growing in black yet. “You could get out of here. You and Key both.” When Taemin didn’t look up or say anything, Minho added in a quiet voice, “You don’t have to keep doing this. You’re worth more than a couple hundred thousand a night.”

“To who?” Taemin asked. “We’ve lost so much money this last month. Makoto--”

“Doesn’t own you. You don’t belong to him, Taemin.”

“Where would we go? Neither of us ever went to university. My only talents… Well, you know what my talents are.”

“Key told me you used to like to dance. You could dance again.”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Think about it. I’ll call Key and tell him to come home tomorrow.”

Minho disentangled himself from Taemin and walked to his bag. He’d dropped it in the corner after Key had delivered it and hardly looked at it since then. He dug for a few seconds before he found it, buried beneath three pairs of pants and some stained shirts.

He pressed the power button and waited while it did nothing. He swore and prayed that he’d thought to ask Key to throw in his charger.

“What’s wrong?” Taemin asked from the bed.

“I don’t think… Hah!” He spotted the white cord tangled up with a belt and yanked it free. “My phone died.”

He plugged it in and sat on the edge of the bed with Taemin until the display lit up. Almost immediately it started buzzing. Twenty-seven missed text messages. Thirteen missed calls.

_From: Kim Jonghyun_

_Jinki and I are going out tonight. Come with us!!!_

_From: Kim Jonghyun_

_Minho. Are you alive? Text me back._

_From: Kim Jonghyun_

_Fine, be that way._

_From: Lee Jinki_

_I know Jonghyun’s an ass, but he’s getting worried. So am I. Where are you?_

The texts got progressively more worried. By the last night, Jonghyun was threatening to call the police. The phone calls were no better. He played Jonghyun’s first message on speaker simply because anything else would have required him to let go of Taemin, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to do that yet.

“Choi Minho, where the _fucking hell_ are you? No one’s heard from you in three days. Your assistant called Jinki looking for you. There is some guy living in your apartment, you know. Of course you know, you wrote that note. Ridiculous, by the way. Just send me a text or something.”

He ignored the rest, figuring they were all similar, until he found one from Jinki.

“Minho, please, just let us know you’re okay. I don’t know if Jonghyun did something, or what, but your parents don’t know where you are. Neither do we. Jonghyun’s in a panic. We’re scared.”

Minho felt a flash of guilt. He’d never meant to worry them, but he’d been thinking of more important things. He should have at least told them that he would be out of contact for a while. Taemin trailed his fingers down Minho’s back.

“I’m sorry.” Taemin sounded as miserable as Jinki had sounded worried.

“This isn’t your fault.” He keyed up a text message and typed in a quick message to Jinki.

_To: Lee Jinki_

            _I’ll tell you about it later. Sorry for scaring you. I’m fine._

The text had barely gone through when his phone buzzed.

_From: Kim Jonghyun_

_Do not ever scare me like that again, you ass. I’m glad you’re okay. See you soon._

Minho couldn’t help but smiling at his phone. He didn’t know how Jonghyun had gotten the message as quickly as he had, but it was so typical of him. It reminded him why they were friends. And, with a brief pang, it reminded him why he’d fallen in love with Jonghyun in the first place.

Taemin’s hand pressed against Minho’s. He didn’t take Minho’s hand, and Minho made no move to take his. He wasn’t sure how many of Taemin’s touches and frail smiles were brought on by some sort of mistaken belief that the boy owed him.

“You can go,” Taemin said. “If you want. You can just tell Key to come home today.”

Minho, against what was possibly his better judgment, squeezed Taemin’s fingers. He stood up before Taemin could react, keying up his home number and holding his phone to his ear. It rang once before going to his answering machine.

_“This is Choi Minho. Leave a message or call my cell.”_

“Key, this is Minho. Pick up.”

He hardly had to wait. The phone made a clattering noise as though it had been dropped and Key’s voice came across, half out of breath. “How’s Taemin?”

“He’s okay.” Minho gave Taemin a smile and moved out into the entry way, closing the door behind him. “He’s still weak, and I don’t dare leave him alone for long, but he’s alive.”

He heard Key sigh heavily. “Thank god. Is he… Is it over?”

“For now,” Minho said. “Addiction doesn’t just go away. He’ll struggle with it for the rest of his life, but it’ll get easier. These first few weeks will be the worst. Especially if he keeps…”

“Whoring?” Key supplied.

Minho grimaced. “You said he usually shot up afterwards? That’ll be the worst. It would be best for him if he stopped.”

“You don’t exactly just ‘stop’ this business. We don’t get here because we like it.”

He couldn’t miss the bitterness in Key’s voice. It was almost identical to the way Taemin sounded.

“There has to be some way to get out.”

“Yeah. Usually it’s by dying.” Key sighed again. “I’ll talk to him. Maybe I can find some way to get him out.”

“I don’t think he’ll go without you.” When Key didn’t say anything, Minho added, “Taemin wants one more day. Then you can come home.”

“And you’ll leave him.”

“You have my number,” Minho protested. It was starting to sound false to his ears, like he was trying too hard to convince them that the number would solve all of their problems. Neither of them had cell phones. Their house phone only worked at the best of times, and there wasn’t money for them to get the line fixed.

“I’ll be there at nine.”


	5. Chapter 5

Taemin watched Minho step back inside. He gave Taemin a quick, guilty smile. Taemin felt his heart sink. Minho had probably told Key to come home right away. He could understand. He must have been miserable company the last two weeks, or however long it was. It felt like it could have been months. Parts of it were hazy with fever, but other parts that he remembered with painful clarity, like the time he threw up in Minho’s lap. He remembered screaming at him.

Or the time that he hadn’t been able to keep himself standing long enough to even rinse himself off in the shower. Minho had just stripped down to his boxers and tee-shirt and stepped into the water behind him, holding him up.

Even thinking about it made Taemin acutely ashamed. He pressed the blanket over his face. Before he could contemplate suffocating himself out of sheer embarrassment, he felt a warm hand on his shoulder.

“You okay? Are you feeling sick again?”

Taemin pulled the blanket down and looked up at Minho. Minho’s eyes were wide with concern and he sat down at Taemin’s side, pressing the back of his hand to Taemin’s forehead. Taemin couldn’t bear to meet his eyes and looked away, but he nodded that he was okay.

“Are you sure?” Minho asked. “You’re feeling a little warm…”

“I’m under five blankets,” Taemin protested. “I didn’t even know we had all of these.”

Minho ran his thumb across Taemin’s forehead as he took his hand away. “I’m going to finish cooking, but if you feel sick at all, let me know. I don’t want you falling on the way to the bathroom again.”

That one Taemin didn’t remember. He was so sore all over that he supposed it hardly mattered where any one of them came from, but he was curious about the purple bruises around one of his wrists. He’d had plenty of experience with bruising, but even Key had never come home with bruises so vivid. It was only just beginning to fade on the outer edges, and it must have come on one of the earlier days. Those were the ones he had the hardest time remembering.

“Minho?” he asked, before he could lose his courage. When Minho made a sound to signify he was listening, he held up his arm. “What happened here?”

Minho turned around to see what he was talking about. As soon as he did, Taemin wished he hadn’t said anything. The expression on Minho’s face was so sad that Taemin hid his arm behind his back, as though that would make it go away.

“I’m sorry,” Taemin apologized, looking down again.

He heard the sound of Minho turning off the stove and moving pots before he felt the bed shift beside him. Minho took his hand gently, as though afraid it would break if he weren’t careful.

“No, I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I should have been more careful with you.”

“What did I do?”

Minho closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His fingers were stroking down the inside of Taemin’s arm, skirting carefully around scabbing scratches. Taemin didn’t think he realized he was doing it.

“You were trying to get outside. I tried to stop you.” Minho smiled, but it was the furthest thing from happy Taemin had seen in his life. “You hit hard for someone your size. It was just a bit of a wrestling match to get you inside, and then to keep you on the bed until you stopped trying to leave.”

It clicked.

He understood why Minho had left his boxers on in the shower, but it didn’t make sense for him to leave on his shirt. It wasn’t like Taemin hadn’t seen him before. Even the first few days, Minho always changed in front of Taemin to keep an eye on him.

Taemin reached for the hem of Minho’s shirt. Minho went to pull away, but Taemin shook his head.

“No,” he said. “It’s not that. I just… What did I do to you?”

Minho stilled at that, his eyes squeezing shut while Taemin pulled his shirt over his head. It dropped from his fingers when he saw what he’d done. Minho’s chest and sides were mottled green and yellow. Most of the bruises were already fading, but Taemin felt tears well up in his eyes.

“Oh.”

Minho’s thumb caught a tear that rolled down Taemin’s cheek. He put his arms around Taemin and pulled him in, letting Taemin bury his head against his neck.

“Don’t cry, Taeminnie. This is not your fault.”

Taemin wanted to tell him that it very much _was_ his fault, but it seemed that after the first tear, he couldn’t stop crying. Minho sat there, letting him sob into his neck.

The last thing Taemin remembered before he fell asleep was Minho lifting him gently and laying him back down on the bed, stretching out his limbs into a more natural position and pulling the blankets over him.

When he woke up again, it was dark and he felt arms wrapped around him from behind. He shifted and the arms tightened immediately.

“Where are you going?” Minho’s voice was heavy with sleep, but the words came out clear.

“Nowhere,” Taemin said, rolling over to face him. “I was just moving. What time is it?”

Minho’s hand struck out behind him and somehow managed to snag the cord for his cell phone. He blinked blearily at the display. “Two AM. Is everything okay?”

“Weren’t you going home?” Taemin asked, rather than answering. The _want_ had woken him, a sharp ache in his chest. If he kept himself busy, found other things to focus on, he could usually ignore it long enough for the craving to fade to the dull, semi-permanent emptiness he felt.

“Tomorrow,” Minho said, stifling a yawn with his hand. “Oh, I think I forgot to tell you. Key will be here at nine tomorrow.” He paused. “Nine today, I guess it is now.”

Taemin just snuggled deeper into Minho’s arms, resting his head on Minho’s bare chest. He started to pull away when he remembered the bruises there, but Minho didn’t let him go.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Minho said, his voice a deep rumble. “Stay here.”

Taemin obeyed, draping an arm over Minho’s waist to get more comfortable. He tangled a leg with Minho’s, letting himself imagine for just a moment that Minho was holding him because he was _Taemin_ , not because he was the little whore that had the misfortune of getting beaten up when he was nearby and then not even managing to properly stop caring long enough to let the job and the drugs kill him.

After a while, he felt Minho’s breathing deepen and even out, heard the heartbeat beneath his ear slow. Taemin figured he’d never have another chance. He propped himself up on one elbow.

He could see the outline of Minho’s face in the moonlight, the play of shadow across his cheeks and in the hollow of his neck. Taemin carefully, gently, lifted his arm from Minho’s waist and ran his fingertips over Minho’s jaw line, the prickle of stubble tickling his fingers.

Minho shifted and Taemin froze, watching him until he settled again, his face tilted just slightly toward him. Taemin couldn’t resist brushing his thumb over Minho’s lips. They parted at the touch, a gust of warm air ghosting across Taemin’s skin.

With the most careful movements he could manage, Taemin slid upward until his face was even with Minho’s. He paused, eyes flicking across Minho’s face, looking for any sign of consciousness. He lay still. Taemin leaned down, pressing his lips to Minho’s as lightly as he could. He was surprised when Minho responded, lips parting a little more, making a soft sound, but he was still asleep, as far as Taemin could tell.

Taemin kissed beneath Minho’s jaw, and then again at the corner of his lips. He knew he shouldn’t have done it, but he kissed at Minho’s lower lip again, letting his tongue slide along the skin there. Minho’s hand came up and caught his wrist.

“What are you doing, Taemin?”

Taemin pulled back so quickly he almost fell off the bed and only Minho’s arm around his waist kept him in place. Minho’s eyes opened, glinting in the pale light.

“I just…” Taemin briefly toyed with lying, but decided that he owed Minho the truth at least. “I wanted to know.”

“What I’d do if I caught you kissing me in the middle of the night?”

“What it was like to kiss someone. For real. Someone who cared.”

He hesitated briefly. “Lay down.”

Taemin wanted to die of shame, but he did lay down, curling as far away from Minho as he could manage while still being on the bed. Minho put a hand on his shoulder, rolling him onto his back. He looked straight ahead until Minho’s face appeared in front of him. His hand cupped Taemin’s cheek.

“Close your eyes.”

“What?” Taemin asked.

Minho just waited until Taemin finally closed his eyes. He heard Minho mutter something that might have been, “This is such a bad idea,” but he was still surprised when he felt Minho’s lips on his, gentle and careful. He was about to tell Minho that he didn’t have to do this when he felt the first swipe of Minho’s tongue across his lower lip. He opened his mouth for him almost on reflex, and then Minho was kissing him. He kissed him back, feeling Minho’s lips curl into a smile.

It was the first time Taemin had ever felt anything other than revulsion when he’d kissed someone. Most of his other kisses had been with men who’d thought that talent at kissing was related to how far down someone’s throat you could get your tongue. But with Minho, it was something else. It wasn’t even so much lips and tongue and teeth as it was Minho’s hand against his skin, his soft breaths against Taemin’s cheek.

It took him a moment to even identify the sensations coursing through his body. He hadn’t felt true desire in years, certainly not brought on by a single kiss. Although, if Minho’s hand sliding further down between their bodies was any indication, he wasn’t the only one. Taemin tangled his fingers in Minho’s hair, pulling him in closer. Minho’s hand had just reached the waistband of Taemin’s pants when he froze and then pulled away. Taemin managed not to make any disappointed sounds. Mostly.

“Why did you stop?”

“I’m sorry. I am so sorry. I can’t do this to you. I shouldn’t have…”

“Why not?” Taemin asked, sitting up with him. He was failing to see any problem with this situation, except that Minho had stopped.

“Because you’re just a kid and you’re still so fragile right now and you don’t owe me anything. Because I can’t… I can’t let myself think the things I’m thinking.”

“What are you thinking?”

Minho laughed, but it was a hoarse sound. “Probably not what you’re thinking I am. Go back to bed, Taemin. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

Taemin caught his arm, suddenly frantic with fear that if Minho left, he would never come back. “No, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. Please, just don’t go yet.”

He waited, hardly breathing, until Minho relaxed. He eased himself back beneath the blankets and held his arm out for Taemin. “No more of that, Taemin. I’m serious.”

Taemin nodded dutifully. What he’d gotten would have to be enough. He curled back against Minho’s side. He’d expected Minho to be uncomfortable, but he molded easily enough against Taemin, one hand playing with his hair.

He was almost asleep when he heard Minho whisper his name. He considered answering, but decided that the draw of sleep was more alluring that anything Minho could have had to say

“You’re so beautiful and so broken. I wish I knew what to say or to do to convince you that you didn’t have to be like this anymore.”

He was quiet for so long that Taemin started drifting off. Minho’s hands trailed down his face and he kissed Taemin’s temple.

“Please be okay when I go. You can call me whenever. I’ll always come for you.”

He fell asleep before he heard the last part.

“I think I might be in love with you.”

\---

Taemin woke the next morning to the smell of food cooking. He realized that he was starving and, a moment later, that he was alone. He sat up.

“Minho?”

“I’m here,” Minho said, standing from where he’d been crouched over his bag. “What’s wrong?”

“I thought you’d left.”

“You’ve still got me for about another hour.” Minho cast a glance over at the food on the stove, but came to the edge of the bed, reaching for Taemin’s cheek. “You know you can call me at any time, right? You don’t even need to have a reason.”

Taemin forced a smile on his face. “Yeah, of course.” He moved back, pretending not to see Minho’s hand, and pretending not to see the expression on Minho’s face. “I think I’ll take a shower before Key gets here. I probably smell disgusting.”

“Do you need help?”

Taemin was proud of his knees for not shaking when he stood. His body was still wracked and weak, but he was getting stronger. The food Minho kept shoving down his throat probably helped, now that he was actually hungry again.

“I think I’ve got it.”

Minho moved away, putting almost too much space between them. “Yell if you need anything.”

Taemin didn’t say anything, just walking into the bathroom. If Minho wasn’t going to bring up last night, then neither was he. It was like some big secret between them, what Taemin had wanted when he’d touched him, what Minho had been thinking. Especially if he hadn’t been thinking of sex, which was what he made it sound like.

Truthfully, he didn’t see what was such a big deal about it. Sex was sex. The only difference would have been that Taemin might have actually enjoyed himself this time. It wasn’t like he was some virgin who didn’t know what he wanted. He hadn’t been a virgin since he’d been found freezing on the streets of Seoul in the middle of the winter. Makoto had offered him a warm room and food, provided Taemin did some “entertaining” for his guests. Even then, Taemin hadn’t been stupid. He knew what he was getting himself into, at least in theory. It was just a night of someone else’s pleasure for his survival.

Somehow a night turned into four years and so many other peoples’ pleasure that he couldn’t remember them all. He couldn’t even hazard a guess at how many there had been. Aside from Minho, no one had made an impression. Not even the ones that had put him out of work for weeks, recovering from bruises and torn skin.

The food and warmth had become heroin to keep him dependent and a room to keep him from getting arrested off the streets. Taemin wished that he had it in him to care more. He just couldn’t find the anger, or ambition, that he needed to do as Minho wanted him to do.

He threw on the cleanest clothes he could find and stepped out of the bathroom, toweling his hair dry. A shape hit him hard in the chest, driving him back against the wall.

“Taemin!”

Taemin coughed, trying to draw in a breath through the arms wrapped around his ribs. “Key? You’re early.”

Key took a step away, looking Taemin up and down before hugging him again. “You’re okay, right?”

“Yeah. I’m okay,” Taemin said. He wanted to be annoyed that Key had come so early, but seeing the joy on Key’s face was enough to draw a real smile onto Taemin’s face. “I missed you.”

And he had, he realized, once the words came out of his mouth. He’d spent nearly all of the last four years with Key, day and night. They’d been together for almost everything; the first time Taemin came home so battered he could barely walk; the time Key had nursed him through a bad dose of heroin. Key kept Taemin from killing himself through sheer, purposeful negligence. Taemin kept Key from sinking into his own self loathing.

Taemin lifted his head and saw Minho turning away to repack his bag, even though Taemin knew it had been packed and repacked three times now. Key must have seen something on his face because he gave him one last tight hug and then stepped away.

“Thank you,” Key said.

Minho turned around and blinked at him. “For what?”

“For taking such good care of him.”

“He just needed a little help,” Minho said, shrugging and shouldering the bag. “Anyone would have done it for him.”

He took a step Taemin’s direction and then paused. “Give me a call once in a while, okay, Taemin? Key knows where I live. Take care of yourself. And think about what I said, yeah?”

Taemin wanted to run to him and beg him not to leave, but he just smiled and watched Minho walk out the door. Key slapped his shoulder as soon as the door shut.

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“What?”

“You’re an idiot,” Key said. “You could have stopped him.”

Taemin sat back down on the edge of the bed. He was getting stronger, but he was by no means as strong as before. His body was still trying to recover from the half-starvation he’d put it through, even before the last ten days.

“I’m just a whore, Key. He’s probably forgotten about me already.”

“We can always hope for our happy endings, can’t we? It would have been nice to see you leave with him.”

“Yeah, well, good things don’t happen to people like us. What are we going to do for money this month?”

“I don’t know,” Key said, stepping into the kitchen and lifting the lids of the pots Minho had left warm on the stove. He made an approving sound. “Have you eaten yet?”

When Taemin said he hadn’t, Key dished up the food and brought it to him. Taemin had just taken a bite when he heard a sharp sound from Key at the kitchen table. He was holding up a white envelope with Taemin’s name written on it.

“Huh?”

“He left us a million won.”

Taemin flung himself out of bed, throwing the covers aside. “He did _what_?”

Key flicked a piece of paper in his face. Taemin snatched it out of his fingers, staring at words he could barely read, and then handed it back to Key.

“Taemin, you’ll be okay, I know you will. I know you can do this once I leave. And I’m not leaving forever. All you have to do is call and I’ll be there. This money is for you and Key. You can do whatever you want with it. I’m hoping that you decide to use it to get out. But it’s up to you. Key, just don’t let him use it to buy drugs. Be well, Minho.” Key leaned back in his chair. “Still think you’re just a whore?”

“Shut up,” Taemin said. “You heard him. He said that anyone would do it.”

“He said anyone would do it _for you_. Obviously he meant that he wouldn’t have done it for just anybody.”

He gave Key a look designed to shut him up. He really didn’t want to talk about it. But somehow he still opened his mouth and said, “He kissed me.”

Key leaned forward like a gossiping schoolgirl. “Really?”

Taemin sat beside him at the table and explained what had happened. He left out what Minho had been doing when he pulled away, but implied that had Minho not stopped, Taemin had no intention of making him.

Key made a sympathetic sound, but his words were far from it. “At least he was thinking clearly.”

“Excuse me?”

“Taemin, I know you’ve been at this for a long time, but I don’t think you quite understand love.”

“Don’t be dumb. He doesn’t love me.”

Key threw up his hands and stood. “You’re impossible. And blind as a dead bat in a thunderstorm.”

“What does that even mean?”

Key didn’t answer. He just started throwing food into containers to stuff into their tiny fridge. It already had more food in it than it had ever contained. Taemin watched him, but after a while, the relative excitement of the morning started catching up with him. He yawned, his eyes fluttering shut before he dragged them back open.

Key was standing in front of him, his hand extended. “Come on. To bed. You need to sleep.”

And Taemin did sleep. He did very little but sleep and eat for another four days before he felt well enough to stay awake the entire day. It was another week before he suggested to Key that he return to work again.

Key, unsurprisingly, was not thrilled with the prospect, but once Taemin convinced him that he was healthy and had even gained a little weight, Key gave in. Minho’s money had been enough to pacify Makoto for the time being, but they needed more, and they needed more a lot faster than Key would be able to get it on his own.

Despite his agreement, Key screened every one of Taemin’s appointments. It wasn’t so much of a loss to get Key rather than Taemin, and Taemin knew Key was taking all of the worst ones. He came home every night with the look on his face Taemin had come to associate with bad appointments. He never saw any marks, but he knew they were there.

He tried convincing Key to give some of them up, but Key just reminded him that it was his specialty, after all. He considered himself generous for even allowing Taemin to start taking appointments again. Taemin didn’t argue the point. He wasn’t entirely certain that Key was wrong when he could barely make it from the bedroom the first time. It had been simple and easy, but his knees nearly buckled when he made it into the safety of their room.

Things got better after that. He continued to regain his strength, even if after some appointments he lay in Key’s arms, shaking and wanting and _craving_ even a taste of heroin. Key started scheduling his life around Taemin, making sure he was only alone in the mornings or on days he didn’t have appointments.

It was worst on the day that his dealer came with Makoto’s monthly “free gift,” about three weeks after Minho had left. Taemin heard Key answer the door, heard his voice. And suddenly the want was so intense that he folded in on himself, his arms wrapping around his stomach.

He tried to do what had been working for him before. He tried to remember all of the most horrific things about the withdrawal; he tried to think of Minho. He closed his eyes until he saw starbursts; he dug his fingernails into his palm until he felt his hand slick with blood.

Nothing worked. Not even imagining Minho’s face if he ever saw him with fresh marks up his arms, not even imagining Key burying him.

He didn’t realize he’d been calling Key’s name until Key was there, arms wrapped around his shoulders, leading him to the bed.

“I’m here, I’m here. I’m sorry. I’m here now.”

It was almost those first days all over again. He was shaking; his skin was cold. Key was talking to him, but the words didn’t make much sense.

“Is he gone?” Taemin asked, once he thought he could control himself enough to form words.

“He’s gone. He’s not coming back.”

“I don’t think I can do that again.”

Key took his hand. “You can. If you did it this time, you can do it again.” He hesitated. “Do you want me to call Minho?”

“I think I’m okay. I’m just a little shaky.” He held up his free hand as proof. Key took that hand as well, pressing them both between his palms.

“You’re bleeding.”

“I think it’s stopped.”

Key exhaled sharply. “You need to get out of here.”

“What?”

“I’ve been doing some reading--” he gave Taemin a look when the boy scoffed, “--and everyone says that it’s much harder if you don’t change _everything_ when you stop. You used to shoot up after appointments, and you said the cravings come back then. And just now…”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Will you?”

“Yes,” Taemin snapped, standing and pulling away. Key stayed seated on the bed, but when Taemin looked over at him, he was watching him, a pensive expression on his face.

“I don’t want to watch you hurt like this. It’s better if you go.”

“Go where?” Taemin asked.

“Minho would take you.”

“I don’t need his charity!”

“I don’t think it’s charity,” Key said, but his voice was wary.

“I’m sorry,” Taemin said miserably. “I’m useless to be around. I can’t even control myself. I’m so worthless at all of this.”

“Not a single word of that is true. And you know that’s not why I want you to leave. I just want you to be safe. I think you could be safe with him.” Taemin made to interrupt but Key glared at him and he quieted. “You can’t be safe here. What we do…”

“Just give me a little while, okay? I can do it. I can.”


	6. Chapter 6

Minho pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. He jumped when he felt a hand on his forearm.

“Is everything okay?” Jinki asked, loud enough to be heard over the music in the background.

He made a noncommittal sound. “I haven’t been sleeping well the last few days.”

“You haven’t slept well since you vanished into the wastelands,” Jonghyun said, depositing a drink in front of him. He was just drunk enough that he swayed when he walked. Minho made a face at the drink, but sipped at it anyway. Jinki waved away Jonghyun’s attempt to give him another one, but finally took it when Jonghyun offered it to Minho instead. “You haven’t been any fun either. You’re moping.”

“I was still in Seoul. I was just busy.”

“Anywhere we’re not is practically the wastelands.”

“He’s drunk,” Minho observed. Jinki nodded. “You’re drunk.”

Jonghyun shrugged. “It’s Saturday night. Of course I am.” He plucked Jinki’s drink out of his hands and put it in Minho’s. “You should be, too.”

Jinki snorted and took it back. “Somebody needs to babysit you.”

Somehow Minho found himself accepting each of the drinks that Jonghyun waved in front of his face, even after Jinki tried to stop him. He was tired of not knowing what he wanted. He was tired of not knowing _who_ he wanted.

Sometimes he thought it was Taemin, with his long hair and the scars up his arms. Other times it was still Jonghyun, smiling, laughing Jonghyun with his ridiculously and purposefully bad attitude. He didn’t know and he didn’t want to care.

Taemin hadn’t called him. Obviously, things hadn’t been what Minho had thought. It had to have been affection brought on by their proximity and Taemin needing someone to love him unconditionally for a little while.

Jonghyun wasn’t worth breaking his heart over. Jonghyun would give anything to a friend, but with his seemingly endless trail of former lovers, Minho was beginning to suspect that particular honor didn’t apply to them as well. He would take Jonghyun’s friendship over nothing.

So he downed drinks until he stopped feeling anything at all.

He woke up the next morning with his head pounding, his mouth dry, and the sudden, inexplicable, craving for as many eggs as he could lay his hands on. He started to sit up, but someone grabbed his wrist.

“Stop moving so loud.”

Minho hoped that his life hadn’t turned into the plot of a very bad, very predictable film. Unfortunately, looking down at the mussed black hair of the owner of the hand, he realized that it was so much worse than he’d thought.

“Fuck.”

Jonghyun looked up at him, his eyebrows drawn down in confusion. “Why are you in my bed?”

“We’re in my apartment, moron,” Minho snapped, trying to slip on the boxers he’d managed to locate not too far from the edge of the bed.

“Oh,” Jonghyun said. “That’s why the blankets were the wrong color. Did we…?” He made to sit up and then dropped back to the bed. “Oh. Yep. _Ow_. Why did you top?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Minho countered. He took the opportunity to grab his jeans and pull them on while Jonghyun’s eyes were closed. He heard Jonghyun snickering.

“It’s not like I haven’t seen it before.”

Minho flung the pillow at Jonghyun’s face. “What were you thinking?”

He sat up, letting the pillow fall into his lap. “Me? Oh, no. This one was all you. I didn’t start this one.”

“Takes two.” Minho threw Jonghyun’s pants at him.

“You’re persuasive. Can I use your shower?”

“When has anything I said ever stopped you?”

Jonghyun actually paused to think about it. “There was that one time in university. You told me not to sleep with… whatever her name was. The one who cut her hair short.”

“You slept with her anyway.”

“Yeah, but I _waited_.”

Minho rolled his eyes and headed for the kitchen. His head was in no state to keep up with Jonghyun’s so-called common sense, even while sober. “You know where it is.”

He waited until he heard the water turn on before dialing his phone. Jinki’s voice answered, surprisingly unruffled by the call.

“You sore today?”

The words weren’t what Minho had expected Jinki to answer the phone with, and it took Minho a second to make the connection. “I’m not. Jonghyun might be.”

“Oh, _my glorious god_. I did not need to hear that.”

Minho dropped down into a chair, realizing a second too late that he hadn’t started the coffee. He considered getting up, but instead leaned back as far as the chair would go without tipping over and managed to press the power button.

“Why didn’t you stop me?”

“I tried,” Jinki protested. “But when you walked out onto the dance floor and stuck your hand I-do-not-want-to-know-where and announced loud enough for the whole room to hear that you were going to fuck Kim Jonghyun, the issue was more or less out of my hands.”

Minho groaned. “I didn’t.”

“You did.”

“Fuck.”

“From what I’m gathering, you did that, too.”

Minho had the urge to throw his phone across the room.

“I need you to kill me.”

Jinki just laughed.

“Please?”

“If you’re old enough to get yourself into these kinds of troubles, you’re old enough to get yourself out. Besides, I can’t imagine the headline of ‘Professor Kills Friend after Friend Sleeps with Other Friend’ would go over well in the university newsletter. There would be questions. Is he still there?”

“He’s showering.”

“At least it wasn’t awkward.”

Minho was silent.

“Well, at least you didn’t have to learn his name,” Jinki amended. “It could have been worse. He could have been Russian.”

“Really? That’s your silver lining here? He could have been Russian?” He hauled himself to his feet and opened the refrigerator door. “Fuck.”

“What?”

“I don’t have any eggs.”

“You really are hung over. You know, if you lived in your apartment like a _normal person_ you might actually have food there.”

“Says you,” Minho countered, digging deeper into his fridge. There was pizza. He smelled it. “How long before pizza goes bad?”

“If you have to ask, don’t eat it,” Jinki advised. “Listen, I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later. Good luck dealing with Jonghyun.”

“I’ll pacify him with food and swear never to mention this night again.”

Their phones disconnected to the sound of Jinki’s laughter.

“Who was that?” Jonghyun asked, emerging from the bathroom, one of Minho’s shirts hanging off his shoulders. At his look, Jonghyun shrugged. “I think someone threw up on mine. Or maybe a cat peed on it. Regardless, I ain’t wearin’ it.”

“Jinki. I called to let him know we were both alive.”

Jonghyun paused in the middle of toweling his hair dry. “You’re not going to expect me to start calling and letting you know where I am, are you?”

“I’m not a girl.”

Minho knew the words were a mistake as soon as he left his mouth. Jonghyun didn’t even try to keep the smirk down. “I noticed.”

“If there were more than a coffee pot beside me, I would throw something at you.”

“Coffee?” Jonghyun asked, perking up instantly. Minho poured him some and slid the cup across the counter into his hands. “You should have been a bartender.”

“Going home with them is much classier.”

Jonghyun looked suddenly uncomfortable. “Yeah, um. I’m… I probably should have tried to stop you or something.”

It was the closest Minho was ever going to get to an apology. And it was for something that wasn’t even his fault to begin with, but Jonghyun was chewing at his lip, eyes flashing between Minho and the coffee. So he just grinned at him and pointed to a cupboard. “Sugar’s up there.”

Jonghyun managed to knock the door open with the tip of his fingers and tug the container down without spilling anything. “You keep that up there on purpose,” he accused.

“I do, in case miniature dinosaurs come to my house while I’m out.”

“I did that _once_.”

Minho paused. “How would a cat pee on your shirt if you’re wearing it?”

Jonghyun shrugged, dumping about half of the sugar container into the cup. “Stranger things have happened.”

Minho sipped at his coffee, content to sit in silence until the woolly thrumming in his head faded to something a little bit more manageable. He knew Jonghyun was completely incapable of sitting still for any amount of time. Even so, Minho was impressed how long his friend lasted, staring down at the dark liquid in front of him, occasionally picking out a few grains of sugar and adding them to the mix.

But the obvious signs of Jonghyun-is-bored gradually started appearing. He tapped his bare feet on the floor, he hummed bits of songs that were either ancient or he’d made up himself, he spun his mug back and forth on the counter until coffee sloshed over the sides.

“Okay, fine,” Minho said. “What?”

“What what?”

“What are you still doing here? You’ve showered, you’re wearing my clothes, you’re drinking my coffee, and… if I had any food in this apartment, you’d be eating it. What are you still doing here?”

Jonghyun shrugged, seemingly unconcerned, but Minho knew him well enough to see the signs of agitation. He wasn’t quite meeting Minho’s eyes, still chewing on his lip. He’d only taken a sip or two of the coffee, despite having put enough sugar in it to turn it into syrup.

“Are you kicking me out?”

“When have I ever kicked you out of my house?”

“Then what’s the problem with me still being here?”

Minho groaned and let his head fall back into the cupboards, ignoring the double spike of pain from his headache and the impact. “I can’t follow your logic right now.”

When he looked back down, Jonghyun was standing in front of him, coffee abandoned on the counter behind him. “What are you doing?”

“Using your logic,” Jonghyun said, which didn’t really help matters. He figured it out when Jonghyun’s hands came up and tugged his head down until their lips met.

Kissing Jonghyun sober was nothing like kissing him drunk, from what snippets Minho remembered from the night before. Last night had been a lot of awkward half-misses, and Jonghyun had tasted like way too much whiskey, which Minho hated anyway. This time, he tasted like spearmint toothpaste and sugared coffee. And he was a much, much better kisser this time around.

When Jonghyun pulled away, Minho took a second to force his mind to turn back on. “Did you use my toothbrush?”

“I kiss you and all you can think about is if I used your toothbrush.”

“I’m kind of trying to figure that part out,” Minho confessed. Jonghyun was still standing directly in front of him, his hands resting on Minho’s shoulders. He realized, a bit belatedly, that he had his hands on Jonghyun’s waist. He let go.

“I think, probably, you should go,” Minho mumbled. He tried not to see the hurt that flashed across Jonghyun’s face when he stepped back, his hands falling to his sides.

“Oh. Okay. Um, I’ll just grab my stuff.”

He disappeared into the bathroom. Minho closed his eyes. He didn’t know what he was thinking. Six years waiting for a chance with Jonghyun and now that he had it, he didn’t know if he wanted it. He kept thinking of a small red-headed boy who looked up at him as though he were the only person in the world.

When Jonghyun emerged again, he suddenly wasn’t sure. Jonghyun been the one who helped Minho pick up the pieces after his first film bombed and he’d been certain that he’d never make it as a director, even though the script was complete crap and the actors hardly knew inflection from reflection. Jonghyun had dropped everything, including his only serious this-could-be-the-one girlfriend, and flown immediately from France to Seoul when Minho had thought his mother was dying.

Minho had always been good at making quick decisions in sports. He’d been a natural at looking at a scene spread out before him and deciding where he wanted cameras. But he’d never been good at making these kinds of decisions -- the ones that really, actually mattered in the real world. He’d always been sort of at a loss when people were involved. When it came to the way a ball moved across a field, the way a camera had to rotate, those made sense. People with their confusing, complex feelings that got hurt more easily than they were repaired were sometimes completely beyond him.

“Jonghyun, wait.”

Jonghyun paused by the pile of shoes by the doorway. He made a show of digging through them for his, even though they were right on the top, where he’d kicked them off last night.

“I’m…”

Jonghyun glanced up at him, his lips twisted into a bare semblance of a smile. “You’re right. You always are. We’d be a mess if we tried.”

Part of him was relieved that Jonghyun had relieved him of the responsibility to make a decision. “We’re still… I mean, things are okay, right?”

“We’re fine. I’ll see you in a few days.”

The smile Jonghyun gave him was a little more real than his last one had been, but it was still far from the star-in-the-sky smile he usually had.

It was almost another week before he even saw Jonghyun again. He and Jinki were at Insomnia after the last of Jinki’s classes for the week. Minho had just gotten the script for a new movie and was reading over it, a careful barrier of napkins and towels around it, in case Jinki had one of his spasms and sent coffee everywhere.

He was just making another sharp mark through one of the staging directions when a gust of cooling autumn wind ruffled his pages and he looked up. Jonghyun was standing there, a guitar case slung over his shoulder. He had dyed his hair again, a slightly reddish color this time. He did it every time he broke up with somebody and needed a change. Apparently “sleep with your best friend” fit under that category.

Jinki looked back and forth between them. Minho hadn’t told him everything, but he’d told him enough for him to make the connection between their missing friend, his new hairstyle, and the expression on his face when he looked down at Minho.

“Jonghyun,” Minho greeted, unsure of exactly where he stood in Jonghyun’s variable list of people with whom he was willing to consort.

Jonghyun grinned--it was only a little forced--and tugged the chair next to Minho out with his foot. He sat and peered over Minho’s arm.

“New film?”

“I haven’t decided if I’m taking it yet,” Minho said. “It’s not bad, it’s just not…”

“Good?” Jonghyun guessed.

Minho snorted. “Something like that.”

Their exchange must have been enough to convince Jinki that nobody was going to try to kill anybody else, at least in public.

“Where have you been?” Jinki asked. “I thought you had fallen off the face of the planet.”

“Around,” Jonghyun said evasively. When Jinki raised his eyebrows, he shrugged. “I sulked for a little while. And then I wrote for the rest of it.”

“You started writing again?” Minho asked. Jonghyun hadn’t written a song in well over a year.

“It’s not very good,” Jonghyun confessed, snatching Jinki’s coffee from his hand, sniffing it, and apparently declaring it not sweet enough, because he put it back. “It’s been a while since I wrote anything at all.”

A giggling sound drew Minho’s eyes away from Jonghyun and to the barista.

“Hey,” she said, looking at Jonghyun.

Jonghyun stared at her for a second before realization dawned. It was the same barista he’d flirted with before. Judging from her smile, they had done more than flirting. “Oh. Hi.”

“I get off at nine.”

“Oh, um,” he looked to Minho and Jinki for help. “I’m actually… Not…”

Fortunately, she realized what he was going to say before he managed to firmly stick his foot in his mouth. She gave him a scathing look and retreated behind the counter, whispering angrily to the other girl there, who glared at him as well. Jonghyun wilted. Minho tried not to laugh. Jinki didn’t even bother trying, bursting out into snickers that he tried to hide behind his hand.

“Thanks for that,” Jonghyun said, glaring at the two of them.

“I am impressed,” Minho said. “Turning down beautiful women throwing themselves at you?”

Jonghyun shrugged self-consciously. “I’m just not interested, I guess.”

Minho saw Jinki’s eyes widen in shock. He figured the same expression must have been on his face.

“What?” Jonghyun demanded crossly. “I don’t only think about sex.”

Minho held up his hands in surrender, one hand darting out to rescue Jinki’s cup from an elbow. In the silence, Minho turned back to contemplating the script in front of him.

“I don’t think I’ll take it,” he announced, shoving it away from him.

The motion bumped the table, sending the recently-rescued cup rocking back and forth. Before anybody could move, it tipped on its side, soaking the pages. Jonghyun rescued his guitar from beneath the table, holding it in the air like the coffee was going to jump up and get it.

“Oops,” Jinki offered.

Minho just laughed, throwing a towel over the mess. “It wasn’t that good anyway. This might be an improvement.”

\---

Minho sat in his apartment, surrounded by piles of scripts. His television was on in the background, playing some drama he’d never even heard of before, but the background noise was what he needed, rather than an actual show. Somebody had just gotten shot when he heard pounding on his door. The door opened without waiting for a response from him.

“Where are you?” Jonghyun called.

“Living room,” Minho answered, unfolding his legs and standing. He grimaced when the muscles in his left leg spasmed. Jonghyun sauntered into the room just in time to see him stagger onto the couch, poking at his calf like it might bite him.

Jonghyun stood there for a second, head cocked. “What are you _doing_?”

“My leg cramped.”

“So you’re poking at it.”

“Shut up.”

Jonghyun set his guitar case down and knelt at Minho’s feet, brushing his hands away. His fingers dug into the muscle, finding the knot after a moment or two of investigation.

“That _hurts_.”

Jonghyun gave him a look from under his hair, but didn’t stop massaging the muscle until the last of the knot had disappeared under his fingers. He sat back on his heels. “Better?”

“Yes. _Ow_.”

“Don’t be such a baby,” Jonghyun grumbled. “How long were you sitting down there, anyway?”

“A couple of hours.”

“You need a babysitter.”

“Says you.”

Jonghyun was about to retaliate when he stopped, looking momentarily confused. “No. Wait. I came here for a reason.”

Minho leaned back on his couch, rubbing at the place where Jonghyun’s fingers had been. He hoped that, at the very least, he would have a bruise he could blame on him by tomorrow.

“What’s up?”

Jonghyun flicked the guitar case open and pulled it out, gesturing to Minho to turn off the television. He did, just as somebody else died. Minho wasn’t even sure he remembered them being onscreen before. Jonghyun perched on the edge of the couch.

“Tell me what’s wrong with this,” he demanded, strumming a few warm-up chords, pausing to tune the guitar properly.

Minho just nodded. He’d missed Jonghyun barging into his apartment at all hours of the day, rather than stumbling into his apartment at five in the morning and passing out on his couch. Jonghyun played with his eyes closed, concentrating on music that was still unfamiliar to him. His fingers fumbled on the strings once or twice, evidence of how long it had been since he’d played, but his voice was still true, even through years of disuse.

When he finished he sat there for  a second, fingers still on the strings, before he looked up at Minho. “Well?”

“The bridge,” Minho said. “It’s the chord progression there.”

Jonghyun fingered the chords in silence and then nodded once firmly, marking out an adjustment on a sheet of paper he’d tucked in the guitar case. He played through the section again, half-singing under his breath.

“You’re a genius.”

“I know.”

Minho really had missed this Jonghyun, the one that he’d met his first day at university when they were both hopelessly lost on the campus. Six years had changed all of them, Jonghyun more than he or Jinki, but he could still see flashes of the old Jonghyun, the one he’d fallen in love with, rather than this Jonghyun who partied every night and slept with a different person every time.

Minho felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. He stood and dug it out, frowning at the unfamiliar number. Jonghyun had started strumming again, making some almost imperceptible variations to his song, but he stopped when Minho stood. Minho waved at him to continue, stepping into the kitchen.

“Hello?”

“Minho?”

It only took a second for the voice to register in Minho’s mind. “Taemin?”

Taemin made an affirmative sound. “It’s me.” There was a long pause, during which Minho could hear the sounds of fabric rustling and Taemin making a soft sound of exertion. “I have a favor to ask. If - if it’s okay.”

“Anything.”

“Can we stay with you? Just for a while. It’s… I need to get out of here. And Key is… I can’t take care of him by myself.”

“Of course.”

“Good,” Taemin said, “’cause we’re down below.”

“Come on up,” Minho said. He waited until the phones disconnected before turning. Jonghyun was leaning against the wall, arms crossed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Taemin is… I just need you to not to do anything stupid for a little while. I’ll explain when I can.”

Jonghyun managed to look only a little insulted and mostly concerned. “Not doing anything stupid. Waiting for explanations. These things I can do.”

Before Minho had a chance to ensure that Jonghyun understood, he heard a tentative knocking at the door. When he opened it, Jonghyun lurking behind his shoulder, he saw exactly the opposite of what he’d expected. Taemin looked so much stronger and healthier than he’d ever seen him, but Key was pale and shaking, dark bruises staining his arms and one across his throat.

Minho moved aside, pulling Jonghyun out of the way. Taemin stepped inside, half-carrying Key with him.

“Where can I…?”

Minho pointed down the hall and to the left. “The living room is there.”

Taemin gave him a brief smile and headed the direction he pointed. Jonghyun waited in silence until they’d vanished around the corner before rounding on Minho, grabbing his shoulder.

“Is that your prostitute?”

“ _Shut up_ ,” Minho hissed. “It’s not… I told you he needed help.”

“So you told him where you live?”

“Actually, I told Key where I live.”

“What the hell kind of name is ‘Key’ anyway?” Jonghyun asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“What the _hell_ is your problem?” Minho demanded.

“Doesn’t he have a pimp or something? And God only knows the kinds of diseases he has--”

“He doesn’t have any--” Minho stopped, rubbing his forehead. “If you’re going to be this way, why don’t you just go?”

Taemin coughed from around the corner, stopping Jonghyun’s response. “I’m sorry, but can one of you look at him? I don’t know anything about… I just want to know if he’ll be okay.”

Jonghyun sighed heavily. “I’ll take a look.”

Taemin shied away when he passed him, looking as though he expected to be kicked. “Does _he_ know anything?”

“More than me, probably. He’s been in his share of fights,” Minho said, taking a few steps toward Taemin. He held out his arms and Taemin came to him, pressing his face into Minho’s neck and inhaling deeply. “Are you okay?”

Taemin nodded, his hair brushing Minho’s cheek. The dye was fading, his roots growing out black. He pulled away, baring his arms for Minho’s inspection. Even though the sight of the old scars still made Minho a little sick to his stomach, he saw no evidence of new marks.

He pressed his palm to the inside of Taemin’s left arm, where the worst of the scars were. The skin felt faintly different beneath his hand, although he didn’t know if that was his imagination or if there was an actual, physical difference there. He pulled Taemin into his chest again, holding him there.

“I’m proud of you,” Minho murmured into his ear. “I knew you could do it.”

He felt Taemin tilting his head back to look up at him. When he looked down, Taemin’s forehead had crinkled in confusion.

“You’re what?”

He let Taemin step back. “I’m proud of you?” Minho said, guessing at what he’d been asking.

“I… don’t think anyone’s ever been proud of me before,” Taemin said, his head tilted to the side as though he were trying to remember a time.

Minho had just made up his mind to try to kiss him when he heard Jonghyun clearing his throat. Reluctantly he turned away from Taemin and looked over at his friend.

“Do you have any of that stuff you used on me last time?”

Minho stared at him, his mind flashing to their most recent ‘last time’ and finding nothing at all useful in this situation. “What?”

“The last time Jinki dragged me here after a fight,” Jonghyun said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “The bruise stuff?”

“Oh. It’s in the cabinet in the bathroom. Third shelf, I think.”

Jonghyun cast one last look at Taemin before vanishing down the hallway to the bathroom. Taemin had taken a step backwards when Jonghyun finally turned away, bumping into Minho. Minho slipped an arm around Taemin’s shoulders.

“So he was the one, then?” Taemin asked.

Minho didn’t have to think hard to figure out what Taemin was asking him. “Yeah.”

“He hates me, doesn’t he?”

“I don’t think he understands. Jonghyun’s a good guy. He really is, he’s just… a little bit rash, sometimes. He’ll come around.”

“I’ve never cared that anyone hated me before,” Taemin said, his lips twisting. “A lot of people have hated me and what I am, but it has never mattered.”

“Taemin…”

Taemin shrugged and took Minho’s hand, twining their fingers together and leading him back to the living room. Minho only had a moment to marvel at how comfortably Taemin’s hand fit in his before Taemin dropped Minho’s hand and sat at the edge of the couch, reaching carefully for Key.

Key squeezed his fingertips. “I’ll be okay, Taeminnie.”

His voice was hoarse, and upon closer inspection, Minho could see that his lip had been split. It had broken open again while he was speaking. Key grimaced and wiped at the blood with his thumb, sucking it into his mouth.

Jonghyun came back, the jar of ointment in his hands. Taemin slipped aside, rejoining Minho in front of the large window. Together they watched Jonghyun help Key slip his shirt off, revealing the worst of the bruises and red weals all over his chest. Minho felt sick. He couldn’t understand how anyone could do something like that to another person, much less derive pleasure from it.

“What happened to him?” Minho whispered, hoping that Jonghyun’s quiet conversation would keep Key from overhearing.

Taemin made a face. “Key’s… specialty… is a little rougher than most people like. But the ones that do like it are willing to spend a lot on it, even if Key ends up paying with his skin. Usually I can take care of him… _usually_ it’s not this bad… but I can’t right now.”

“He’ll be okay,” Minho said, resting his chin on top of Taemin’s head. Taemin was still short enough that he could manage it, although only barely. “You can both stay here as long as you need.”


	7. Chapter 7

Jonghyun stood, wiping the last of the ointment into the dark fabric of his jeans. He left the jar sitting on the floor and picked up a guitar case, slinging it onto his back and turning to face them. Taemin wasn’t sure which one of them moved first, but Minho was suddenly standing at Taemin’s side, rather than behind him. Jonghyun avoided looking directly at either of them, his eyes focused on a space somewhere above Taemin’s head.

“I’m going to go. Tell Jinki I’ll see him tomorrow at Insomnia.”

Minho caught his wrist. “Wait--”

“No, Minho, I get it. I don’t understand it, but I get it. A lot of things make more sense now, actually.”

Taemin stepped away, trying not to draw either man’s attention, but they both seemed intent on each other. Jonghyun had finally looked up to meet Minho’s eyes and they were silent. Taemin got the distinct feeling that this was not something in which he wanted to get involved, nor would he have been welcome if he tried. He backed away until his legs hit the couch. Key’s fingers pressed to the back of his arm, a gentle, comforting touch.

“Jonghyun--”

“Let me go.”

“I told you I’d explain. I just need a minute--”

“You didn’t tell me anything,” Jonghyun said, his voice hard and flat enough to make Minho drop his wrist. “Tell Jinki I’ll see him tomorrow.”

He left, closing the door quietly behind him. Taemin saw Minho flinch, either in preparation of the door slamming or because it didn’t; Taemin couldn’t tell. Minho had gone very still, his eyes closed, hands loose by his sides. Taemin wasn’t sure if he was allowed to reach for him, so he stood still as well.

“I’m sorry about him,” Minho said at last, looking over at them. “He was with me when we brought Taemin back to the house. He’s… He just needs a little while to figure it out.” He took a deep breath, forcing a smile to his face. “Do either of you need anything? Food? Something to drink? Actually…” he grimaced, “I’m not sure what kind of food I have.”

Key sat forward on the couch, retrieving his shirt and tugging it over his head. He hissed in pain, trying to find the half-curled position that hurt least. Taemin reached for his shoulder, but didn’t quite dare to touch him.

“I think I’d just like to sleep for a little while.”

Minho helped Key to his feet, leading him toward a door down the hall, Taemin hovering uselessly at his side. “You can stay in the guest bedroom. It’s pretty quiet, so you should be able to sleep as long as you want. And I’ve got some painkillers, but nothing very strong. I’ll be back.”

“You okay, Taeminnie?” Key asked, once the door shut behind him.

“I’m fine,” Taemin said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “You’re the one--”

Key made a dismissive sound. “You know I’m fine. Nothing’s even broken this time. I mean about Minho.”

He shrugged. “I’m just a whore, a kid. He felt bad for me.”

“And he brought you home from the park after you got beat up. And he stayed with you while you were coming off heroin. And he let you into his house.”

“I don’t know what he wants from me. I’m giving up everything for something that I don’t even understand, for something that may not even _be_ anything… Key, just don’t, okay?”

“I don’t really think you’re giving up anything,” Key said, grimacing as he tried to readjust himself on the bed. “Giving up whoring is not the worst thing you could do.” Key tossed his head, flicking the hair out of his eyes, and gave Taemin a serious look. “There are people who want you for reasons other than sex, Taemin. They do exist, and you’ve found one, so don’t go fucking it up, okay?”

Taemin would have hit him if he weren’t already in so much pain. “Shut up.”

“Consider it friendly advice.”

“Shut up and go to sleep. You’re not making any sense.”

“I am so,” Key told him, but his words slurred through a yawn.

Taemin smiled fondly down at him. He stood, pulling the blankets up around Key. “Good night, Key.”

“’Night, Taeminnie.”

Taemin thought he might have been asleep before he stepped into the hallway. He stopped short when he saw Minho leaning against the wall outside.

“I didn’t want to interrupt,” Minho said. He looked down at Taemin, inscrutable. “You’re giving it up, then? Both of you?”

Taemin nodded. He couldn’t meet Minho’s eyes. “Key told him we were done, that I couldn’t do it anymore and he was leaving with me.”

“He did that to him?”

“No, that was an appointment. Makoto agreed to let us go on the condition that Key took one last appointment, and that we gave him everything that we had. I think he almost expected him not to survive. Makoto doesn’t even like letting this man make appointments, but he pays a lot, and, well, Key’s good.” Taemin swallowed, burying the memory of Key stumbling back into their house, hardly making it through the door before he collapsed, barely able to even call Taemin’s name. “We don’t have anything now. Even the clothes we’re wearing aren’t technically ours. I - I didn’t know where else to go. Now that we’re not under Makoto’s protection, I can’t go to anyone like us. Even the women wouldn’t take us in. I’ll be able to survive out on the streets, but he can’t until he’s better.”

“You don’t have to live on the streets,” Minho said, leading him back to the living room. “You can stay here as long as you want; I’ve got the room.” He shrugged. “Jinki says I’m not here enough anyway. He’ll like that I have a reason to come home.”

Taemin stopped. Minho made it another few steps before he realized Taemin wasn’t beside him and stopped as well, turning around to face him.

“What?” Minho asked.

“I’d be a reason for you to come home?” It shouldn’t have been such an amazing concept, but for someone whose own mother didn’t even know who his father was, who had been abandoned to die in the streets at five when he came home from begging and stealing to find their alleyway empty of everything, even their only ragged blanket, the idea of someone wanting to come home to him was shocking. His only value in life was his body and sex.

As soon as Minho nodded, looking almost as confused as Taemin felt, he threw himself into Minho’s arms, hard enough to make him grunt and stumble backwards onto the couch, pulling Taemin down with him.

“Really?” Taemin asked.

“Really,” Minho said. His face was serious, but laughter bubbled out through his words. “Anyone would be happy to come home to you.”

“Even you?”

“Especially me.”

Taemin curled himself practically in Minho’s lap. Minho didn’t protest, adjusting his arms around Taemin so they were both comfortable. The next thing Taemin knew, he was opening his eyes in an unfamiliar bed. It was dark and he was alone, a glowing red clock nearby proclaiming it was 11:08 at night, and he could hear the soft sounds of what had to have been the television. He was still wearing the same clothes he had been when he walked in, tattered jeans that had only just begun fitting him properly again and a torn, stained shirt that hung off him like a malformed blanket.

He rolled out of bed and plucked one of Minho’s sweatshirts off a chair, tugging it over his head to warm up. Minho was sitting on the floor in the living room, back resting against the couch, television essentially ignored. He was reading through a thick stack of papers, lips moving occasionally as he mouthed whatever he was reading. He was frowning, tapping out a mindless rhythm on his knee.

Taemin leaned against the doorway, watching him. Minho brushed his dark hair out of his face, sighing heavily and dropping the papers to the side, toppling an already precarious stack. He tilted his head back, letting it rest on the couch behind him and taking a few steadying breaths. When he lifted his head again, he saw Taemin and a smile broke out across his face.

“Did I wake you up? I need some noise when I’m reading through these.”

Taemin shook his head, navigating his way across the maze of papers. He sat on the couch, legs on either side of Minho, and peered over the top of his head. “What’re you doing?”

“Producers said they’d send me ‘a few’ scripts to see if any caught my interest. Apparently they just decided to throw them all at me until I gave in and picked one.”

“Are you…” Taemin paused, trying to decide how to word the question. “How well-known are you?”

Minho laughed and shrugged, picking up another script. “I’ve been lucky. A lot of people who matter have been watching my career.”

Taemin raised his eyebrows at the back of Minho’s head, but he let his hands fall to Minho’s shoulders and started rubbing at the tensed muscles there. Minho let the script drop into his lap and his head fall forward. Taemin ran his fingers along the vertebrae he could see in Minho’s neck, easing the tension out.

“Where did you learn how to do that?” Minho asked.

“I’m multi-talented,” Taemin said. On impulse, he had leaned down to kiss the first dark hairs on the back of Minho’s neck when someone cleared their throat from the hallway.

“By all means, don’t let me interrupt,” Key said.

Taemin pulled back, but he very purposely slipped one leg over Minho’s shoulder, hooking his foot around his side. He could see a blush climbing up the back of Minho’s neck, beneath his fingers. Key was smiling, arms crossed over his chest.

“Feeling better?” Taemin asked.

“The sleep helped.”

Taemin noticed he hadn’t really answered the question.

“There should be some leftovers in the fridge,” Minho offered.

“Don’t get up,” Key said, heading toward the kitchen. “I think I can handle finding food after living here for two weeks.”

Minho rested his chin against Taemin’s knee. “I’m not going to get any more work done tonight, am I?”

“Mm… no.”

He felt his leg shift when Minho shrugged. “I’m pretty sure you should go back to what you were doing before Key came in.”

Taemin laughed, but folded his legs beneath him, hands finding the place at the base of Minho’s neck where he’d left off. Minho relaxed beneath his hands, his eyes closing. He’d worked his way across Minho’s shoulders when he heard the microwave beep off, but Key didn’t come back into the room. Taemin kept massaging Minho’s biceps until his head tipped back onto Taemin’s knee.

“You probably need to stop that soon.”

Taemin laughed and let go. He meant to just press his forehead to Minho’s, but his lips found Minho’s instead. The kiss was upside down and a little strange, but Minho had this habit of nipping when he kissed, which Taemin had never thought he’d like, but it gave him the sudden urge to drag Minho to bed.

It was all very confusing, the way part of him craved Minho the way he’d wanted his drugs, while another part of him shied away from the very idea. He still didn’t know how Minho wanted him for anything other than sex, and he didn’t know what that something else was. He tried to believe it, and he knew that Minho had proven it again and again, but he couldn’t.

“I’m going to go back to sleep,” Key’s voice announced. “Whatever you two are planning to do, just keep it quiet.”

Taemin pulled away, flinging a pillow at Key’s face. Key sidestepped, tossing a wave over his shoulder and disappearing into his bedroom.

“Taemin?”

“Huh?”

Minho stayed quiet for a few seconds, the side of his head resting against Taemin’s leg. “If I ever go too far with you, or do something you’re not ready for, you need to tell me, okay? I… care about you.” He took a deep, shaking breath. “I love you.”

“You what?”

“I don’t want to scare you,” Minho repeated, half-turning to face him. Taemin met his eyes, something between horror and some other emotion he couldn’t identify roiling in his chest. “I love you.”

Taemin’s mouth opened and closed. He made a few sounds, none of which sounded anything like words. If they had sounded like words, Taemin wasn’t even sure they would be the ones he wanted, not that he knew what those were. Minho stood, holding out a hand.

“You don’t have to say anything. I don’t need to hear anything if you don’t want to say it. I just wanted to make sure you knew. I’m going to sleep. Do you want to come?”

Taemin was exhausted. Makoto hadn’t been willing to let them stay for a few hours after Key’s appointment, leaving Taemin with no choice but to force Key to his feet and beg him to keep walking. Makoto hadn’t left them with even a couple thousand won for bus fare.

He’d been terrified the police would stop them. They’d all been arrested a time or two, but usually they stayed in lockup for a few hours until the police got tired of the fake names and addresses. He knew if he was hauling Key across the city, especially in his condition, the two of them wouldn’t be held for just a few hours. Every time a car slowed or somebody shouted, he had been sure it was the police. They made it to Minho’s apartment without being stopped, but the tension and fear hadn’t faded until they were safe inside.

“Can I stay with you?” Taemin asked, taking his hand.

“Of course.”

Minho provided him with clothes and retreated to the bathroom while he changed. The shirt was short sleeved and Taemin couldn’t help but feel more than a little uncomfortable. He hadn’t worn short-sleeved shirts since he’d quit heroin, the marks on his arms almost enough to bring back the cravings.

“You look lost,” Minho’s voice said.

Taemin realized he had been standing beside the bed with his arms wrapped around himself. Minho led him to bed, tugging the blankets over them both, slipping his arms around Taemin’s waist and pulling him up against his chest.

“I’ve never done this before,” Taemin confessed, his face buried against Minho’s shoulder. “It’s… never really been an option. I’ve had some people think they were in love with me, but… it was all sex. I never fooled myself thinking otherwise. I’m not sure I even know what love is.”

He felt Minho pull closer, his fingers running through Taemin’s hair, soothing him as best he could. “If I could describe it to you, I would. Just trust that I love you. Can you do that?”

Taemin nodded, his eyes already shut. He didn’t know what it was to love someone, had nothing to compare it to, but if it was anything like this - warmth and safety and feeling Minho’s chest rise and fall beneath his arm - he was willing to give it a try.

He woke up the next morning to somebody sitting at the edge of the bed, fingers running through his hair.

“Taemin, wake up.”

“Minho?”

He managed to open his eyes in time to see Minho smile down at him. “It’s me. I’m glad you were still sleeping. I ran to the store this morning; I didn’t want you to think I’d abandoned you.”

“The store?”

“I had almost no food left, and I picked up some things for you two, clothes and the like. If they don’t fit, we can take them back and get you something you like better. We can do that anyway. I just figured you’d want to be out of what you came here with.”

Taemin sat up, seeing for the first time a pile of folded clothes on the chair in the corner. “That’s for me and Key?”

“Those are yours. Key’s are in his room already.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Minho confirmed, getting up and carrying the pile back to the bed. “See anything you like?”

Taemin ran his hands over the fabrics. As far as he could tell, they were just plain jeans and regular cotton-blend shirts, but all of his clothes had come secondhand, or even third-hand, from Makoto.

“I don’t have any way to pay you for these.”

Minho leaned in and kissed his forehead. “You don’t have to pay me for anything. Besides, some of these I bought just because I wanted to see you in them.” He stood up, setting the pile of clothes aside. “There’s a toothbrush for you in the bathroom. You can use anything in there that you want. I’ll be in the living room whenever you’re ready.”

Taemin unfolded every piece of clothing Minho had given him, even the rolled-up socks. He could still smell the dye on the jeans, and the prices on the clothes made his stomach twinge uncomfortably. His schooling may have been lacking, but he had always been good with numbers. The total on the tags was more than he would have earned in several nights.

When he finally emerged, after a long time in what was possibly the most luxurious shower he’d ever seen, he’d chosen a pair of dark-washed jeans and a plain long-sleeve white shirt. The pants were a little big on him, but the shirt fit perfectly. And, most importantly, it hid his arms.

Minho was on the floor again, reading through another script. He was frowning, and as Taemin entered the room, he tossed it aside, letting out an annoyed sigh.

“Are any of them any good?” Taemin asked.

Minho looked up at him. He was silent for long enough that Taemin looked down at himself to see if he’d spilled anything on himself in the three minutes it had been since he put on the clothes.

“Wow,” Minho said at last.

“What?”

Minho climbed to his feet, knocking over another pile of scripts while he did so. He walked up to Taemin and put his hands on his shoulders, looking him up and down. He’d had men stare at him before, but this was different. He didn’t feel cheap, like a purchase. It was a new feeling and he felt himself blush. He hadn’t blushed in a very, very long time.

“That shirt looks good on you,” Minho said and Taemin blushed again. “Are you hungry?”

Taemin nodded, realizing abruptly that he was. Minho vanished into the kitchen for a second and reappeared with a bowl of food. He kissed Taemin on the cheek apologetically. “I need to read a few more of these before my meeting later, but then I’m all yours.”

“Quiet as a mouse,” Taemin promised, settling himself on the couch. Minho smiled at him and sat back on the floor, the back of his head resting comfortably against Taemin’s knee. Before he started reading, Taemin asked, “Has Key woken up yet?”

“Not yet. He was still sleeping when I dropped off his clothes. I left him a note saying they were his.”

Taemin made a noncommittal noise and fell silent, content to watch the television over the top of Minho’s head. He had no idea what was going on, but there were enough explosions to make him think that there was not much plot, especially with the rate at which people were dying.

It was after the third script Minho sent spinning away that Taemin finally decided he needed to do something. “Lay down.”

Minho gave him a wry look, but did as ordered, making a space amidst all the piles of paper. Taemin perched low on his back, letting his fingers find the tension in Minho’s muscles, as he had done before.

Minho sighed, leaning into the touch. “Really, where did you learn to do this?”

Taemin paused, his hands stilling, but after a moment he continued. “There were a few people who were willing to take in kids when the weather got cold enough. One of them was a masseuse. I don’t know why she did it, because you’re risking a lot letting one of us in your home. You don’t know if we’re going to steal or let the gangs inside, but she found me one day and I guess she tried to give me some sort of skill that I could use to get myself off the streets. I spent a winter learning from her. I think, maybe, she would have let me stay, but as soon as the weather warmed up enough, I took off.”

“Why did you go?”

Taemin shrugged. “I was scared, probably. I never liked staying in one place for very long. It was dangerous, if you weren’t part of one of the gangs. They’d let a kid stay in their territory for a few days, but if you seemed like you were setting up camp, they’d either recruit you or make it so no one else could.” When Minho hesitated, Taemin added, “Usually by killing you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. People like her save lives. I’ve spent winters on the streets, when nobody would take me in. If you’re stuck outside at the wrong time, you haven’t got a chance.”

Minho made a pained sound and for a second Taemin thought the massage had hurt him.

“I’m so sorry,” Minho repeated.

“What are you sorry for?” Taemin asked, legitimately confused. “I did what I had to do. Sure, I did a lot of bad things, and a lot of those things I did to myself, but you’ve got nothing to be sorry about.” Taemin moved his hands further down Minho’s back, along his spine.

“I’m going to get spoiled if you keep doing this,” Minho mumbled, his voice muffled by his arms.

“I like giving massages,” Taemin said, “so consider this repayment for the clothes.” He paused, his hands still moving across Minho’s back, fighting with the fabric of the shirt. “What else do you want to know?”

“Huh?”

“You’ve got to have questions. It’s fair you know what you’re getting into with me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Minho said, but Taemin could feel him tensing.

Taemin shrugged, thinking of the questions he considered most obvious. “My name really is Taemin, as far as I know anyway. I don’t know my family name. I don’t remember my mother’s name and she never knew my father’s name. I don’t know what happened to her and I don’t care. I’ve been living on my own since I was five. I never hooked up with any gangs, except for once, but they all got killed and another gang took them over. I was new enough, though, so I got out, moved to another part of the city where no one knew me.”

“Taemin--”

“I spent a couple winters with whoever would take me in, but they’re less likely to take you in when you’re older, so I made friends with some of the streetwalkers. They usually had someplace warm staked out, and it always helped to have a guy around, even if he was just a kid, so it worked for both of us. That was how Makoto found me. I was fifteen.”

“Taemin, you don’t have to do this.”

“Makoto figured out pretty quickly that I was a fast learner and that I was willing to do what had to be done, so he put me in a house and moved Key in with me. I hated that Makoto owned me enough to make appointments for me and move me wherever he wanted, so I started getting in trouble. I’d stop going to appointments, which was when he moved us to another house so the appointments would come to me. When that didn’t solve the problem, he ‘suggested’ to one of the streetwalkers slip me some heroin.”

He paused to collect his breath and, for once, Minho didn’t interrupt. He was lying silently, his face buried in his arms, but still listening.

“It worked. It kept me compliant, because he paid the dealers in the area enough to convince them to refuse one customer, if he told them to. After a while, he figured it was better to make sure I had a monthly supply, which he provided. Anything beyond that, I had to pay for myself. Key was there to keep me from overdosing and make sure everything was prepared properly. I wasn’t even seventeen yet.

“He’d kept me limited to a pretty select group of customers, because I was still a minor and the cops in the area really only care if the whores are under eighteen. But as soon as I hit eighteen, he became a lot less picky. I got all kinds, and it was my job to keep them coming back, because that was where the money was. Once someone picks a favorite, he’d up the price. Most of the guys who came to me started out paying a couple hundred thousand, and by the time they got tired of me, it was seven or eight.” Taemin shrugged. “And then you came along and messed everything up.”

“You didn’t have to tell me all of that,” Minho said after a silence long enough that Taemin was beginning to suspect, and hope, that he’d fallen asleep. Taemin’s hands were starting to ache, so he slid off Minho’s back and leaned against the couch.

“You should know that you’re interested in someone with no family and nothing to his name.”

“You’ve got family,” Key’s voice said. Taemin’s head snapped up. He was leaning gingerly against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. “I’m your family, if nothing else. And stop sounding so pathetic. I thought I taught you better.”

“How much did you hear?” Taemin asked warily.

“Just the end,” Key said, settling himself gingerly into the chair on the other side of the room.

It hurt Taemin to look at him. The bruises were no less vivid than they had been yesterday, staining his skin horrifying hues of blue and purple. The one on his throat was the worst, where Taemin thought he could see outlines of individual fingers. A bruise he hadn’t seen before had appeared on Key’s cheek during the night.

Key must have seen something on Taemin’s face because he tucked his chin, hiding his throat from view. “I’m okay, Taeminnie. Stop worrying.”

“Is there anything you need?” Minho asked.

“A shower, honestly,” Key said. Taemin understood. He hadn’t even had time to shower before they left and Key never wanted anything more than to scour the memory of the man’s hands off his body. Before he had a chance to offer, Minho was disentangling himself and standing up and helping Key down the hallway.

When he came back, he took Taemin in his arms and just stayed there. Taemin stood still for a few seconds, unsure of what was happening, but after a few moments he relaxed and let his head rest on Minho’s shoulder.

“I have to go soon,” Minho said, pulling back after a few more breaths. “I’ll be back as quick as I can, but I don’t know how long it’ll take. There’s some food in the fridge if you get hungry, otherwise I left some money on the counter if you guys want to order.”

Every day for the next three weeks followed roughly the same pattern, with the exception of the day Minho dragged Taemin to the doctor to have every test that existed run on him, promising to do the same to Key once he was better. Taemin and Minho would spend the morning together, Taemin watching Minho read and trying to decipher the words that Minho read with ease. Then Minho would go to a day of meetings, leaving Taemin alone with Key, who still spent most of his time sleeping.

Key was getting better, day by day, but it was slow. The bruises faded until they were little more than slight discolorations on his skin, and even most of those vanished. Even so, it took him days to be able to move without stiffness, as torn muscles knit themselves back together. He refused to tell Taemin what had happened, but both Taemin and Minho learned very quickly not to touch him. He flinched away almost violently whenever they reached for him. That faded as well, although much slower than any of the physical healing.

By the end of the third week, Taemin was ready to go completely, off-the-wall batty. Key was up most of the time, and bored enough that he was making Taemin miserable. They could only watch television for so long and although Minho had plenty of books, Key had only just begun trying to teach Taemin to read anything beyond the basics, and if Minho had some book that wasn’t titled “The Impact of Some Obscure Person Taemin Has Never Heard of on Filmmaking”, he had yet to find it.

It only took a little bit of wheedling to convince Minho to take a day off and bring Taemin and Key out for coffee, as neither of them had any money. They’d made it to the door of Insomnia without incident when Taemin first saw the two shapes in the window. They were in deep conversation, one of them rubbing at the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. The other one, gesturing violently, Taemin recognized after a moment of examination. Jonghyun had dyed his hair in the weeks since they’d seen him, and he didn’t look pleased with the content of the conversation.

Minho had been talking with Key and didn’t notice them in the window, opening the door in time to hear Jonghyun say, “It’s nothing to do with him and you know it.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” the other one snapped. “You wouldn’t be throwing such a fit if it wasn’t him. He always was the only one who could piss you off so thoroughly.”

“God, Jinki, just lay off, would you?”

“I’m not letting you ruin six years of friendship over this. Minho!”

Minho smiled awkwardly at them. His eyes flicked between the two of them and finally settled on Jinki. “Hey. I was just taking Taemin and Key out for coffee. We can take a table outside, though.”

“Sit with us,” Jinki said, giving Jonghyun a hard look. He leaned back to grab another chair, but he leaned back too far and wavered, almost falling off the backless chair. Jonghyun lunged across the table and managed to catch his arm. Minho pushed a hand onto Jinki’s back, pushing him back into the chair.

“How about you let me get it,” Minho said, smiling.

“And you call me an idiot. You really should get that condition of yours checked out,” Jonghyun grumbled. “It has to be diagnosable.”

While Minho was retrieving another chair, Key took the seat beside Jinki. For just a second, Taemin thought he saw something in Key’s face and posture that he’d never seen in the years he’d known him, but it vanished beneath the constant half-mocking smile before Taemin could catalogue it and call him on it later. Minho’s hand was on Taemin’s shoulder, directing him to the chair at the end of the table, on Key’s other side. Minho took the seat between Jonghyun and Taemin.

The three of them ordered their coffees when the waitress came, and the table fell to awkward silence which endured until after she had given them their coffees and scurried away. Jonghyun spent the whole time staring down at an old coffee stain on the table.

“How are your classes?” Minho finally asked, breaking the silence.

“Same as always,” Jinki said. “Half of them are freshmen who still can’t believe they’re at university. The other half are upperclassmen who realized that they should have taken this class while they were still freshmen. They all make it harder than it is.”

“It’s all supply and demand,” Jonghyun interrupted, copying Jinki’s long-suffering tone. “Once they figure that out, everything else makes sense.”

“Jinki’s an economics professor at the university, the youngest one they’ve ever hired. We have this conversation every time we bring up his classes. He’s positive that economics is as easy as breathing. I almost failed that class.”

“I’m youngest by a week,” he protested. “And you did not, because we took that class together. I dragged you through by the ear.”

It was odd to see Minho with his friends. They brought out a side of him different than the quiet, focused man Taemin saw most of the time. Even though it was obviously still awkward, with Jonghyun alternating between glowering at the table and wilting beneath the dark stares Jinki kept sending his way, Minho was more animated than Taemin had seen him in days.

He felt a sharp pain in his ankle. Key leaned toward him. “Stop staring,” he whispered.

“Staring at what?” Taemin asked, lowering his voice to match.

“Minho.”

“I am not.”

“Yes you are.”

“At least I’m not staring at Jinki.”

“I am not.”

“Yes you are.”

Before Key had time to protest, Taemin leaned away. “So if Jinki’s a professor and Minho’s a director, what do you do?”

Jonghyun stared at him for a moment, mouth agape in surprise. “I’m a musician. Mostly.”

“He means he lives off his parents’  money and plays guitar for fun,” Jinki said.

“I’m writing,” Jonghyun insisted, pointing to a folder sitting in the windowsill. Taemin could see papers with notations he didn’t understand sticking out of the top. “I just… took an extended break.”

“He’s a mooch,” Minho said, “but we keep him anyway. If we give him enough liquor, he’ll stand on tables and sing.”

“Shut up. I did that once.”

“That you remember,” Jinki said.

Jonghyun snorted and flicked the hair out of his eyes, but it seemed to have been enough to break the awkwardness between him and Minho, because he stopped glaring at the table and punched Minho in the shoulder.


	8. Chapter 8

It took them a few weeks longer to settle in completely at Minho’s, and for Taemin to grow comfortable with all the attention Minho gave him. He was always careful. He let Taemin initiate almost everything, even something as simple as their shoulders brushing together on the couch. He never touched the marks along Taemin’s arms, even through fabric. The only touches Minho ever initiated were to Taemin’s face and hair. He wasn’t sure if it was because he had what felt like ages ago, given Minho permission, or if it was just something intrinsically Minho.

The more time they spent together, the more he thought it was a mixture of both. Minho had this uncanny, almost frightening ability to remember _exactly_ what Taemin liked and disliked, how to reach for him without making him flinch, which noises from the city made Taemin’s heart pound in fear. Taemin had been used to sirens and people screaming where he lived, but those sounds were so much less common here that whenever it happened, he woke terrified, reaching out for Key and finding himself already in Minho’s arms.

Taemin spent most of the days while Minho was gone learning slowly and painfully how to read. Most of the time Key was there with him, helping him through the pages and consoling him when he threatened to throw the book across the room, but the longer they stayed there, the more Key went out, leaving Taemin with the miserable task of teaching himself. He knew the basics, knew the alphabet, knew how the Hangul was supposed to fit together to make sounds and words, but it was still hard. He hadn’t told Minho that he couldn’t read, distinctly annoyed and ashamed, that he couldn’t do something Minho seemed to do without conscious thought.

Taemin was absorbed in trying to decipher the senseless words and shapes. He and Key had read through this section of the book just yesterday, but he was fairly certain the symbols had rearranged themselves, because he could not comprehend a single word. He heard the soft sound of someone clearing their throat behind him.

“Taemin?”

Taemin squeaked in surprise. He’d been certain Minho wasn’t going to be home for a few more hours and then grimaced, realizing it was too late to try to hide the book. “Hi.”

Minho spun a chair until it faced Taemin and sat. He looked like he was trying to compose something in his head, so Taemin let him, his heart pounding in his chest. Minho was going to figure out that he was dumb and make him leave. He knew it.

“Taemin,” Minho began slowly, “please don’t take this question the wrong way, but, do you know how to read?”

“I told you I never went to school,” Taemin said, flipping the book shut. “Key taught me some things. I can read basic stuff. Grocery lists. If there was something he didn’t think I’d know, he’d read it through with me first.”

Minho reached out and took Taemin’s hands in his own. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about, love.”

“You can read, and so can Key and he never even went to school either. It’s stupid. _I’m_ stupid.”

“It’s not stupid and _you’re_ not stupid,” Minho said, tugging at Taemin’s hand to make sure he was looking. When Taemin met his eyes, he continued. “Nothing about you is stupid. _Nothing_. So you didn’t go to school. I don’t care. It’s a miracle you’re still alive. You can learn to read. You can’t learn to not be dead.” He took a deep breath. “I’m done early today. Let’s read for a while. I can help you, if you want.”

Minho turned out to be a patient teacher, once Taemin got over his embarrassment. In just over a week, Taemin’s reading had markedly improved. He wasn’t good by any stretch of the word, but he was becoming competent.

On one of the few days that Minho didn’t have a meeting and was sitting in his customary spot on the floor, sketching out rough storyboards in pencil and listening to Taemin read from the book open on his lap. Taemin was stretched out on the couch, one of his hands running through Minho’s hair absentmindedly while he struggled with the words. The door opened and he stopped, hearing two voices talking quietly in the doorway. One was Key’s.

The two walked in and Taemin couldn’t help but stare. Key was smiling, a real smile that Taemin had only seen a handful of times in his life, his fingers intertwined with the man’s beside him.

“ _Jinki_?” Minho asked.

Jinki looked a little uncomfortable. “We just stopped in because Kibum wants to grab something.”

It was Taemin’s turn to be confused. “Kibum?”

Key shrugged as he headed back toward his bedroom. “It’s my real name. ‘Key’ was good enough when people didn’t really give a fuck who you were. Sorry,” he added to Jinki, “but there’s nothing wrong with Kibum. I kinda like it, honestly. You can call me whatever you want, though.”

“So _that’s_ where you’ve been when you abandon me alone with Jonghyun,” Minho accused.

Jinki stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I like him,” he said, twisting his lips, “and I asked him to move in with me.”

Taemin had never been without Key, at least since he’d shown up at the compound and told Taemin that Makoto was moving them into an apartment. He’d been the only constant in Taemin’s life. Even when he didn’t particularly like Key, or what he meant. He was scared, he realized. Scared of not having Key there. Scared of what that meant.

“I haven’t said yes yet,” Key said, emerging from the bedroom with a jacket in his hands. Taemin didn’t recognize it as one Minho bought. “I wanted to talk to Taemin first.”

He wasn’t looking at Taemin as he spoke, although his head was turned his way. He was looking at Jinki, and despite his words, he still had a faint smile on his face. The only smiles Taemin ever saw were bitter and ragged, almost fragile. This one was different. The Key he’d known kept himself hard, because he had to. He couldn’t afford to be soft, not with their lives, not if he wanted to survive when Taemin was gone.

This wasn’t Key. This was Kibum. He smiled more, laughed more. Even the anger was fading from his face and voice, although it would take longer than three weeks to heal him entirely of that, the same way it would still take more time for Taemin to stop having dreams that woke him aching for the drugs, but it was a start.

“Don’t be dumb,” Taemin said. “Who said I was the only one that got a happy ending?”

“Really? You’d be okay with it?”

Taemin nodded and suddenly found his arms full of Key. The jacket was on the floor and Key was on his knees beside the couch, hugging Taemin fiercely, his face pressed against Taemin’s neck. “Thank you, thank you, _thank you_.”

Taemin smiled, returning the hug. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll visit. We won’t live that far apart.”

“Kibum?” Jinki asked hesitantly. “We’re going to be late… Our reservations…”

Key relinquished his hold on Taemin and brushed away what Taemin would have been willing to swear were a few tears. He took Jinki’s hand. “All right. Let’s go.”

Once they were out the door, Taemin looked at Minho and said, “I love you.”

Minho had already gone back to sketching his storyboards, but his hand froze on the paper. He sat still for a second, head tilted, and then turned, rising to his knees. Minho leaned in and kissed him, a hand cupping Taemin’s cheek. He did that _thing_ again, where he just barely caught Taemin’s lower lip in his teeth and the feeling welled up in him again, but this time almost no fear accompanied it.

He stood, pulling Minho with him.

“Bed.”

“Taemin, no,” Minho said. “You don’t have to--”

“I know.”

Taemin wrapped his arms around Minho and kissed him, drawing on every last bit of skill he had, sliding a hand beneath Minho’s shirt and up his back, letting his hands learn the way Minho’s muscles moved and felt beneath his skin. He felt Minho tensing, moving to pull away, but his breath was coming faster, uneven.

Minho tried once more to pull away, but Taemin held on, pressing closer and kissing him harder. He only worried for a second before Minho gave in, an arm snaking around Taemin’s waist and pulling him in, one hand tangling in the hair at the base of his neck.

“I love you,” Minho said, pulling away long enough to get the words out, before he was back to kissing at Taemin’s neck. Taemin’s attempt at a response was lost as Minho sucked hard at his pulse-point.

Taemin let Minho maneuver them down the hallway, content to let Minho’s hands and lips trail across his skin. He had never known what this felt like and it was almost overwhelming. He didn’t notice that they’d reached the bed until Minho lowered him down onto it, hands skimming up Taemin’s body and tugging his shirt off.

Minho kissed him a few more times and then pulled back, regarding him seriously. “You need to tell me if anything I do makes you uncomfortable, okay? This isn’t how it used to be. You get a say in this. You can tell me no, and I’ll stop. I want to show you what this is supposed to be, how it’s supposed to feel.”

The thought of relinquishing control was enough to make his body go cold. That was what Key did, that was the worst of Taemin’s appointments. He still had nightmares of men pinning him down, when they took from him, rather than when he gave, even as ridiculous a distinction as that was with the money thrown on the bedside table.

“I will never do to you what they did,” Minho promised. He must have seen the apprehension in Taemin’s eyes. “As long as I’m here, you don’t have to be afraid. Tell me if you want me to stop. It’s completely up to you how this happens. If this happens.”

Taemin hadn’t been this nervous since his first time, but Minho was gentle, stopping whenever Taemin began to feel uncomfortable or overwhelmed, which happened more than Taemin would have liked to admit, because he wasn’t some blushing virgin. Minho was more attentive than Taemin thought the sum total of his appointments had ever been.

He was very familiar with sex, but this was something new. He’d never allowed himself to feel anything, even when his clients had tried to give him some small bit of pleasure. With Minho, he found he was content to accept whatever he was given. Minho didn’t let him take control, didn’t even let him try to give the same pleasure, but Taemin didn’t mind. He wasn’t taking control for himself, he was doing it for Taemin. It was weird and despite how much experience Taemin had with sex, this was new, and he found himself arching beneath Minho with the first real pleasure he’d ever found in sex.

Afterward, once he’d caught his breath and regained feeling in his extremities, Taemin moved to get up from the bed. Minho’s fingers wrapped around his wrist and tugged him back down to the bed and into his arms. “Nuh-uh. You don’t get to go anywhere yet.”

Taemin hadn’t really thought about what happened for normal people _after_ sex, but he had to admit that Minho’s arms around his stomach, his breath gusting past Taemin’s ear, was definitely something to which he could become accustomed.

He’d only been lying there for a few seconds when the cravings hit. They weren’t as strong as they had been the first weeks after Minho left, but they were strong enough. He didn’t think he’d made any sign, but Minho’s hand tightened immediately on his.

“What’s wrong?”

“My… It’s…” He didn’t know how to word it, but Minho seemed to understand, nuzzling into the back of Taemin’s neck.

“I’m right here.”

“Is it ever going to go away?”

“I don’t know, love. It should get better over time. We’ll figure it out.” Minho kissed the side of Taemin’s neck. “Go to sleep. I’m here. I’ll help you.”

Taemin gradually felt himself falling asleep, his body’s exhaustion overcoming the sharp edges of the ache. Minho was holding the rest at bay, arms tight around him and occasionally pressing gentle kisses to whatever skin he could reach when Taemin’s shivers got too bad.

“Minho?” he asked. Minho made a sound to show he was listening. “I love you.”

He felt Minho smile against his skin. “I love you too.”

Taemin woke up a few hours later to someone knocking at the bedroom door and Key’s voice shouting at him. “Taemin, I want to show you something.”

“What?” Taemin yelled back. Minho groaned and buried his head in the pillow.

“I’m just guessing, but by the state of the living room, and the fact that your _shirt_ is lying in the middle of the hallway, that I don’t want to come in there right now.”

“I don’t know what shirt you’re looking at, but it’s not mine,” Taemin grumbled. “Give me a second.”

“Bring Minho, too,” Jinki’s voice added.

“One minute,” Minho said, sitting up at Taemin’s side. His hand skimmed across Taemin’s hip, settling on his bare side. “You can get in the shower first if you want.”

“Come with me?”

“Tempting.” Minho kissed Taemin’s shoulder. “Go.”

Taemin pouted but rolled out of bed. When he came back, towel wrapped around his waist, Minho was still lying where he’d left him. Taemin watched him for a moment. He had fallen back asleep, one arm flung over his eyes. His hair was tousled, and even longer than it had been the first time Taemin had seen him. He made a mental note to tell him to get it trimmed.

“What are you staring at?”

“I thought you were asleep.”

“No.” Minho sat up and Taemin could feel him watching as he walked to the closet and dug out some clean clothes. He pulled out a pair of jeans and a long sleeve black shirt.

“What?” Taemin asked at last, when he’d pulled the last of his clothes on. Minho hadn’t taken his eyes off him the whole time.

“You haven’t touched a single short-sleeve shirt I bought you, and you haven’t even tried one on when we go shopping.”

Taemin pulled his arms toward his body, hands catching the fabric of the shirt as though Minho would try to take it off him. “I just don’t like it.”

Minho stood and wrapped his arms around Taemin from behind, resting his chin on Taemin’s shoulder. “Is it because of the marks?”

Taemin nodded, the familiar shame welling up hot and bitter inside him.

“They’re already fading,” Minho said. “Have you noticed? The ones on your right arm are almost gone.”

He reached for Taemin’s forearm, but Taemin pulled his arm out of Minho’s reach.

“I still don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to.” Minho kissed his neck and let him go. “All right. I’ll be out in a minute.”

Taemin walked into the living room, trying to shake the water out of his hair. Key and Jinki were sitting on the couch, Key’s head resting on Jinki’s shoulder, staring blankly at the television. At the sound of Taemin’s footsteps, he jumped up.

“Come on, we have something to show you.”

“Minho’s still showering.”

“Why didn’t you just shower together? I mean obviously it’s not like you have anything to hide at this point--”

“Shut up.”

“Minho’s a little old fashioned sometimes,” Jinki said.

“Yeah, ‘cause rescuing a hooker is ‘old fashioned,’” Key mumbled, but he sat back down on the couch at Jinki’s side, twining their fingers together.

Taemin stayed standing, half watching the couple on his couch, half watching the news scroll along the bottom of the screen. He heard steps behind him and then felt Minho’s lips on his neck. He reached behind him and wrapped his arms around Minho’s waist.

“You two are sickening,” Key grumbled. “No more sex, if this is what it does to you.”

Taemin stuck his tongue out at him. Key mouthed ‘mature’ in his direction.

“What did you want to show us?” Minho asked, gently disentangling himself from Taemin’s arms with one last kiss to his neck. Taemin decided that if sex always made Minho this affectionate, he was going to have to make sure it kept happening. Often.

Key stood and pulled out a length of black fabric. Taemin took a sharp step back, bumping into Minho. “Uh… That was always more _your_ thing than mine,” Taemin said.

“What? No. Don’t be dumb. We want it to be a surprise.”

“Erm…”

“No one’s going to hurt you,” Key said, somewhat more reasonably than before.

“He doesn’t have to--” Jinki began.

“No, it’s fine. I can do it. I know how he gets when you ruin his surprises,” Taemin said.

Key grinned. “Get your shoes on. Let’s go.”

Taemin did as he was ordered, putting his shoes on and letting Key tie the blindfold over his eyes. He felt a brief moment of panic before Minho’s hand found his.

“I’m here,” he murmured, lips right by Taemin’s ear. His deep voice eased the fear tightening Taemin’s throat. Taemin nodded and suddenly Minho was lifting him, carrying him down the stairs. Before he knew it, he was buckled into a car, and they were driving through Seoul.

When the car finally slowed to a stop, he heard Minho hiss in a breath.

“Jinki, you didn’t.”

“She owes me,” Jinki said, turning off the car, “and she’s willing to see what he can do.”

Hands helped him out of his seat and turned him to face a particular direction.

“Ready?” Key asked. Taemin could hear the excitement bubbling in Key’s voice and he nodded. Key whisked the cloth away, leaving Taemin blinded for a moment in the sun, but when his eyes cleared, he was standing in front of a large stone building, people of all ages filing in. It took him a few seconds to find the writing on the side, but when he did he just stared.

“A dance school?”

“I told a friend of mine that I knew someone who was in a rather particular situation, but that I had it on pretty good authority he could dance. She’s willing to give you a try. If you’re good enough, she’ll take you on as a teacher,” Jinki said.

“I haven’t danced in years.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Jinki said, shrugging. “I told her your circumstances had kept you from it. She said she’ll help you get caught up. That is, if you want it.”

Taemin stared at the building. Through the windows, he could see silhouettes of people moving, dancing to music he thought he could almost imagine, and it made his chest ache. He felt tears stinging his eyes and he brushed them away almost violently.

“Taemin?” Minho asked, his hand curling around Taemin’s shoulder.

“What if I don’t know how to do it anymore?” Taemin whispered, turning to face Minho. “I’ve never had any real training…”

“If what Key’s told me is true, I don’t think that matters. Give it a try. She’s worked on a couple of films of mine and she’s a great teacher. I think you’ll like her.”

“But what about…” Taemin half-lifted his arms.

“The thing you need to know about Luna… She hasn’t had a very easy life either. She’s never going to dismiss you out of hand because of a couple of scars or a bad history. You’re going to have to prove yourself, but she’s fair,” Minho said.

“A lot of the students she takes on can’t afford to go anywhere else. Some of the kids have no place else to go. And some of her students could go anywhere they wanted, but they want her.” Jinki paused. “She’s inside, if you want to see her.”

Taemin took a deep breath, looked over at Minho, and nodded.


	9. Epilogue

“Why are we doing this again?” Jonghyun asked, lounging on Minho’s couch.

“Because he’s my boyfriend and I love him,” Minho answered, emerging from the hallway with Jonghyun’s jacket held in his hands. He waved the offending item of clothing at his friend. Jonghyun groaned but stood and slung the jacket around his shoulders.

“That doesn’t explain why _I’m_ coming.”

“Jinki and Kibum will be there, too. Besides, you said you’d be there and now you’re just complaining to complain.”

Minho gave Jonghyun an expectant look before starting out the door. Jonghyun sighed, running a hand through his bright blond hair, and followed him out. The car was idling outside, his driver waiting to usher them in.

“Tell me where we’re going again?” Jonghyun asked, following a few steps behind.

“You’re trying to stall. We’re going to be late if you--Hang on.”

Minho dug out his phone and hit the button to answer it, sliding in the back seat and pulling Jonghyun down by the arm, ignoring the soft yelp as his friend’s head barely missed the door. “Hello?”

“Are you on your way yet?” Jinki’s voice asked. “Taemin’s nervous.”

“We’re driving now. Put him on?”

There was a brief rustling and then Taemin’s voice came through. “Minho?”

“How’re you doing?”

“I am _not_ nervous. I’m just… a little…” Taemin hesitated. “Okay, yeah, I’m nervous.”

“This is nothing you haven’t done before.”

Taemin made a sound that Minho would have categorized as “indignant squawk” if he’d seen it written. “I’ve never done _this_ before.”

“Baby, you dance all the time. What’s the difference?”

“The difference is there are people _watching me_. Important people. If I fuck this up, it’ll be really bad for the school and the students.”

Minho laughed. He could almost see the expression on Taemin’s face, the one he always wore when he thought Minho was making everything entirely too simple and failing to see the world-ending catastrophe Taemin was certain was lurking just around the corner. “I’ll see you soon. Try to stay calm.”

“Calm,” Taemin repeated. “I can do calm.”

“Good. We’re almost there. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

The call disconnected and Minho slipped the phone back in his pocket. He saw Jonghyun watching him with furrowed eyebrows.

“What?”

“You chose right,” Jonghyun said at last, tapping his fingertips against his knee and jittering his feet. “I mean, I knew it then, I guess, which was why I made such a mess of things, but he was the right one for you.”

Minho stared at him for a few seconds. “Have you been spending too much time with Jinki?”

“It’s just… I wanted to tell you.”

“Thank you?”

Jonghyun let out an annoyed breath and Minho was pretty certain he was missing something important.

“This is the part where you say ‘I forgive you’ and then we move on,” Jonghyun said.

“I never blamed you for anything,” Minho said slowly, still more than a little bit confused. “Taemin never did either. When I told him about… well, the time we slept together, he understood.”

“You told him about that?”

“Of course I did. He deserved to know.”

Jonghyun stared out the window at the streets of Seoul flashing past the windows. Minho wasn’t sure what had so inspired Jonghyun that he felt the need to bring it up, but he figured he’d never know. It was one of those strange Jonghyun quirks that he was fairly certain would never actually make sense.

Minho let the car fall silent. He knew Jonghyun felt bad for that first month when he’d done everything he could to make Taemin feel unwelcome. He had essentially ignored Taemin’s existence, only talking to him when he had no other choice. It had broken Minho’s heart.

Taemin accepted it with a kind of quiet patience that had surprised Minho. He’d shrugged when Minho apologized, telling him that he’d had people hate him for what he was, it was refreshing to have someone hate him for the person he loved.

Eventually, Jonghyun had relented. Minho wasn’t entirely certain if it was because he had given up or if Taemin had won him over himself. Minho had thought they’d all put it behind them and largely forgotten about it.

Apparently it was still bothering Jonghyun. The car slowed to a halt and Minho gave Jonghyun a wry look, once he caught his eye.

“I forgave you four years ago.”

Jonghyun flashed him a relieved smile as the driver opened the door. Minho stepped out, moving aside for Jonghyun to follow. He sighed when he glanced over the top of the car and saw people gawking at them from the other side of the street. It wasn’t even like he was doing anything particularly impressive. He was just sitting in the back seat of a stupid car.

Jonghyun shoved at his back, moving him toward the school. “You were the one who said we were going to be late.”

“We could have walked,” Minho grumbled once he got his feet under him again, leading the way into the school.

“The production company wanted you to stop walking around Seoul like a bum.”

“Have you _seen_ where I live?” Minho asked. “I don’t think a bum could get into that neighborhood even if he sold his soul to a company willing to buy it.”

Jonghyun snorted. “You love it. And you love that it lets you spoil your boyfriend rotten. Stop bitching.”

He and Jonghyun strode through the doors of the studio. Some of the older dancers, the ones that had been there since Taemin’s arrival, greeted them by name as they hurried around, finishing up last-minute tasks and chasing down nervous children. The rest just watched, half in awe. Minho owned the building, but he rarely came by, preferring to leave the running of the place up to Taemin and Luna.

If he was being honest, some of them were probably also staring at Jonghyun. He was already fairly well-known, at least in certain circles. As dance and music tended to go hand-in-hand, it shouldn’t have been surprising that a few of them recognized Jonghyun. Even the ones who didn’t know who he was… Well, there was no denying that the last four years had been good to Jonghyun. He wasn’t as scrawny as he had been and his hair was eye-catching enough to make anyone take a long first look.

They rounded the corner to Taemin’s dressing room. The door was cracked open and he could hear the low murmur of voices inside. At Minho’s knock, he heard running footsteps and Taemin flung open the door, seizing Minho’s hand and dragging him through, hardly waiting long enough for Jonghyun to follow before he slammed the door.

Minho didn’t even have time to greet Kibum and Jinki before Taemin was looking at him, wide-eyed and terrified. “I can’t do this.”

“Why not?”

“Because if I fuck this up, I could mess up a lot of scholarships for these kids. I’m going to forget how to-to walk or something.”

Minho struggled to keep the smile off his face. “Hush. You are going to do _fine_. All you need to do right now is relax and breathe.”

Taemin pressed himself against Minho, like a cat demanding attention, making Minho wrap his arms around the dancer’s waist. He kissed the side of Taemin’s neck and Taemin rested his chin on Minho’s shoulder. He’d finally gained the last few centimeters he needed for them to be the same height.

“Thank god,” Kibum said from across the room. Minho glanced at him. “He hasn’t stopped moving for the last fifteen minutes.”

“All right,” Minho said, drawing away. “Are we okay now?”

Taemin nodded, a hesitant smile dawning across his face. “We’re okay.”

“Good,” Jonghyun said. He’d sprawled down on one of the couches in the dressing room. “Because there is something I’d like to address here. First of all, I really like that shirt. Second, how long have you had your own dressing room? I don’t even have my own dressing room.”

“I think it’s because they want you to stop sleeping with fans,” Taemin offered.

“I have not slept with a fan. I don’t sleep with fans.” Both Minho and Jinki looked at him. “Okay, I did that once.”

While Jonghyun and Taemin argued about, apparently, the semantics of sleeping with a fan, Minho perched on the counter in front of the lighted mirror. Jinki was still sitting on the couch with Kibum’s hand on his knee. They were both watching the proceedings with almost identical faint smiles.

Kibum was still a skinny little thing, but at least he was healthy. Jinki’s salary wasn’t spectacular and Minho knew Kibum didn’t make much working at the health food store, but they were comfortable. Most importantly, as far as Minho and Taemin were concerned, they were happy together.

Jinki met his eyes and, with that unnerving tendency of his, smiled like he knew what Minho was thinking. He whispered something to Kibum and stood, wandering across the room to Minho’s side so he could survey the room with him.

“He’s looking good,” Jinki said quietly.

“Who?”

“Taemin. It’s hard to believe, sometimes…”

Minho nodded. It still hurt when Taemin shied away from a touch, even if he knew it wasn’t him he was hiding from. It hurt worse on those days when Taemin hunched over like he’d been punched, trying to find some way to fight a craving that, if life had been fair, should have gone away years ago. It happened so rarely now, but that didn’t stop it from killing Minho the same way it had the first time he had seen it happen in the dingy, broken-down house on the other side of town.

“How’s Kibum?”

Jinki sighed heavily, leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms. “He still has nightmares every couple of weeks. I don’t know. He’s getting better, and he’s happy, but I wish there was something I could do for him.”

“You’re doing something for him,” Minho said. “He never used to laugh. I don’t even think I saw him really smile until he met you.”

“I just thought it would get better faster than this. It’s been four years.”

“What are you two muttering about?” Kibum interrupted. “You both look way too serious.”

“Nothing to worry your pretty little head about,” Minho said.

“I don’t think you’re allowed to call my boyfriend pretty.”

“I don’t think you’re allowed to call _anybody_ pretty,” Taemin protested, coming to his side.

“Not even you?” Minho teased. Taemin made a face at him, but tilted his head so his lips were right by Minho’s ear.

“I did have something planned for us tonight, but if you’re not careful…” Minho inhaled so sharply he choked. Taemin drew away while Minho was still in the process of coughing up a lung, a smug smile on his face. “You okay, honey?”

Minho nodded, waving his hand in front of his face. “I’m fine,” he managed hoarsely.

Jonghyun was snickering. “I see why you keep him, Minho.”

Minho was in the process of thinking up a truly biting remark when someone knocked on the door. Luna stuck her head in after Taemin called out the okay to enter.

“You have about ten minutes to get ready before we all meet in the greenroom for some last minute notes. You should get dressed.”

“Thanks,” Taemin said. Minho saw the first edges of nervousness reemerge. “I’ll be there.”

She ducked out, closing the door firmly behind her. Kibum stood, reaching for Jinki. “We’ll give you guys a few minutes. I’ll see you after the show, Taeminnie. Jonghyun, come.”

“I’m not a _dog--_ ” Jonghyun grumbled, but he climbed out of his seat and followed the other two out the door.

“Come here,” Minho said, holding his arms out. Taemin went, burying his face against Minho’s neck, the way he always did when he was upset. “I know you’re going to do spectacular, and we’re all out there for you, but no matter what happens, all you have to do is remember that I love you.”

“What if I mess up?”

“Then you mess up. You move on. The people out there _want_ you to do well. You and Luna thought up this choreography together, didn’t you? You know what to do.”

Taemin nodded, his face still hidden. Minho took a step back, kissing him on the forehead and then once on the lips.

“I love you,” Taemin whispered.

“I love you too,” Minho said. “Go, get dressed. I’ll be the first person you see after the show.”

He turned and headed into the auditorium, taking a seat by his friends. Kibum was whispering something to Jinki, Jonghyun flicking through his contacts on his cell phone. The lights faded and the youngest of the children dutifully trotted out, herded by two of the older students. They were replaced at the end of their song with the next level up, this time old enough to go out unescorted.

Eight or ten songs later, Minho heard the beginning of a baseline he recognized only because he remembered Taemin humming it incessantly around the house. He saw the men and women in business clothes lean forward. This was, after all, what they had come for. Word was spreading of this twenty-three-year-old who danced liked he breathed. Minho sat forward with them. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, Kibum’s hand catch Jinki’s. Even Jonghyun’s chin lifted.

Taemin stepped out and Minho’s heart swelled with pride. He looked so natural, perfect on the stage, his head held high. It seemed _right_ to him, the way Taemin moved, like there was nothing else in the world he should be doing right then. Luna followed him out a few bars later, sliding smoothly into the song.

When the lights flashed out, leaving Taemin and Luna backlit for just a second, Jonghyun leaned forward amidst the clapping, pulling Minho’s head closer. “Okay, you win. Your boyfriend is awesome.”

Kibum reached across Jinki to get Minho’s attention. “Go to him,” he mouthed, giving him a little shove to start him moving. Minho made his way through the audience and past the stage doors, heading toward Taemin’s dressing room.

Taemin was standing with his back to Minho, a water bottle in his hands. Luna was talking to him, a bright smile on her face. She looked over Taemin’s shoulder and her smile widened. She pointed, slipping away to give them their privacy, and Taemin turned, looking to see what she was indicating. His face lit up in a smile as soon as he saw Minho.

Minho suddenly had his arms full of Taemin, who had run to him with enough force to drive him back a few steps and into the main hallway. Before he’d even regained his balance, Taemin was hauling him into his dressing room and shutting the door behind them.

Taemin paused, almost bouncing on his feet, eyes shining. “Well? How was it?”

“You were incredible.”

Taemin threw himself back into Minho’s arms. Minho hugged him as tightly as he could, feeling the sharp rise and fall of Taemin’s chest.

“Really?”

“Absolutely,” Minho confirmed. He held Taemin tight for another second and then released him. Taemin was still smiling. “I am so proud of you.”

Taemin worked his way back into Minho’s arms again, resting his head against Minho’s shoulder. “I never thanked you.”

“For what?”

“For saving me. For taking pity on a whore who didn’t ever plan to make it out of his teens. And for loving me like you have.”

Minho wished he could see Taemin’s face, but Taemin remained stubbornly in place. He contented himself with running his hand up and down Taemin’s back. “You’ve never had to thank me. After everything that you went through, all I ever wanted for you was happiness.” This time he took a step back so he could see Taemin’s face. “Are you happy?”

“Of course I am!” Taemin looked so offended at the prospect that he might not actually be happy that Minho had to laugh, pulling him back into his arms after a quick kiss.

“Then that’s all I need.”


End file.
